Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

About Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghettiwas an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, Ferlinghetti was best known for his second collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies.

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More quotes from Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Southern California, where the American Dream came too true.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

They were looking for a stable, but we didn’t have one. In fact, we weren’t very stable ourselves.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

It’s much easier to consume the visual image than to read something.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn’t have any money for lawyers.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

No, I didn’t become disenchanted. I just couldn’t paint like them.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

I think if there’s a great depression there might be some hope.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Well, I didn’t know how to draw very well back then, in the ’40s and ’50s.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

These are international criminals, and the spineless Democrats are doing nothing about it.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

I’m reading a book about Romaine Brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

And the Blue Angels are coming back to scare the local population. I remember seeing old Vietnamese women ducking under the benches in Washington Square; they thought they were back in the war.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Everything the Beats stood for was the opposite of the dominant culture today.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Anyone who saw Nagasaki would suddenly realize that they’d been kept in the dark by the United States government as to what atomic bombs can do.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

Don’t patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he’s stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

It’s the story of an American who wants to become a dictator and goes to Europe with a sidekick to interview various Fascists to find out how the Nazis and Mussolini got into power.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

I’d ban all automobiles from the central part of the city. You see, the automobile was just a passing fad. It’s got to go. It’s got to go a long way from here.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all “bottom line” editors; everything depends on the money.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)

I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American artist, writer and activist (1919-2021)