Poetry can change the world, just like any art can change the world, by changing consciousness. Of course this was the great slogan of the nineteen sixites hippies’ revolution—enlarge the area of consciousness, which quite often was done by psychedelic means.

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.

I certainly was surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far-out city on the left side of the world, and I gratefully accept, for as I told the Mayor, "How could I refuse?" I'd rather be Poet Laureate of San Francisco than anywhere because this city has always been a poetic center, a frontier for free poetic life, with perhaps more poets and more poetry readers than any city in the world.

The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it’s the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it’s a failure in communication.

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

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

Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.