Quotes from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems

Allen Ginsberg ·  119 pages

Rating: (1.4K votes)


“Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“The weight of the world       is love. Under the burden       of solitude, under the burde       of dissatisfaction    the weight, the weight we carry       is love.”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“No rest       without love, no sleep       without dreams of love—       be mad or chill obsessed with angels       or machines, the final wish       is love —cannot be bitter,       cannot deny, cannot withhold       if denied:     the weight is too heavy”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“The grime was no man’s grime but death and human locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis’ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt—industrial—modern—all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown—
and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos—all these
entangled in your mummied roots—and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems



“No point writing when the spirit doth not lead.”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked... who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts...”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“Money has reckoned the soul of America 
Congress broken thru to the precipice of Eternity 
the president built a War machine which will vomit and rear up Russia out of Kansas 
The American Century betrayed by a mad Senate which no longer sleeps with its wife

- Death to Van Gogh's Ear!
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“fortunately all governments will fall
the only ones which won't fall are the good ones
and the good ones don't yet exist”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


“The message is: Widen the area of consciousness.”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems



“We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems


About the author

Allen Ginsberg
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
Born date June 3, 1926
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Popular quotes

“The circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak, and sing with us when we are strong.”
― S.A.R.K., quote from Succulent Wild Woman


“I fell in love with you that summer all those years ago. I never really told you, because of everything that happened. But I suppose I've been in love with you ever since.
Everything's been wrong with us, timing -wise. Hasn't it?
I just wanted you to know I wasn't an idiot, some stupid bastard who wanted to hurt you. I could never do that to you. There were reasons.”
― Harriet Evans, quote from Happily Ever After


“Oh, you mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we shall find you out; you must come into the open then. If the mouth has fallen sourly yours the blame: all the meanness your youth concealed have been gathering in your face. But the pretty thoughts and sweet ways and dear, forgotten kindness linger there also, to bloom in your twilight like evening primroses.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from The Little White Bird


“You and your group of nerds fall into a pit and it's full of dynamite and you blow up. The End.”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Diary of a Wimpey Kid: Roderick Rules


“The watching feeling is getting worse.

I am not an experiment.

I am not a stupid joke, or a trippy game, or an experiment. I will not go insane. Something bad is gonnae happen, though. I can feel it. It’s in the way that crisp bag has faded from the rain. I am not an experiment. If I keep saying it, I’ll start believing it. I have to try. I am not an experiment. It doesnae sound convincing. It sounds stupid.

Try it in German. Ich bin nicht eine experiment. My German’s shite. Inhale slowly to the count of four, look hard at the tip of my nose and try again. This time I go for an official BBC broadcaster circa-1940 accent.

Today, one finds one is not, in actual fact, a social experiment. One is a real person. This is real actual skin as seen containing the bodily organs of a real actual human being with a heart and soul and dreams.

It’s true that I came from real people once too, and they were a jolly old sort, with no naked psycho-ess in any way.

I, the young Miss Anais, understand wholly that I am just a human being that no one is interested in. No experiment. No outside fate. I am not that important, and that is just fine by me. I propose a stiff upper lip and onward Christian soldiers, quick-bloody-march! This is Anais Hendricks, telling the nation: to be me is really quite spiff-fucking-spoff, lashings of love, your devoted BBC broadcaster since 1938.”
― Jenni Fagan, quote from The Panopticon


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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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