Western Civilization has been in a state of decline since the Edwardian age, say 1910. That was the height of Greco-Roman European civilization. Then there was the First World War. That was the beginning of the end. That civilization has been in a decline ever since. But from the American triumphalist point of view our wonderful electronic revolution is really the forefront of an ongoing wonderful civilization.
Lawrence FerlinghettiI once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me.
Lawrence FerlinghettiWe have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.
Lawrence FerlinghettiWhen you're young, everything seems like a romance. At 96, I can still feel romantic about publishing young unknown writers.
Lawrence FerlinghettiThere is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.
Lawrence FerlinghettiI was on television a couple of years ago and the reporter asked me, "How does it feel being on mainstream media? It's not often poets get on mainstream media." I said, "Well I think you're the dominant media, the dominant culture, but you're not the mainstream media. The mainstream media is still the high culture of intellectuals: writers, readers, editors, librarians, professors, artists, art critics, poets, novelists, and people who think. They are the mainstream culture, even though you may be the dominant culture."
Lawrence Ferlinghetti