"My images were surreal simply in the sense that my vision brought out the fantastic dimension of reality. My only aim was to express reality, for there is nothing more surreal than reality itself. If reality fails to fill us with wonder, it is because we have fallen into the habit of seeing it as ordinary."
"Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life."
"I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous person, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the perrson in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable."
"I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds—the one inside us and the one outside us."
"The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art."
"To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves."
"No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!"...
The Beat Generation didn't just write literature—they played it. Their words didn't march in line, they swung, riffed, and blew wild like a saxophone solo at 3AM in a smoky New York bar. If you want to understand the Beats—Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Di Prima—you need to hear the music behind the madness. And that music was jazz.
Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul."
"As often occurs in periods of deep crisis which require bold decisions, we are tempted to think that what is happening is not entirely clear. Superficially, apart from a few obvious signs…things do not look that serious, and the planet could continue as it is for some time. Such evasiveness serves as a licence to carry on with our present...
"Inside, we are ageless...and when we talk to ourselves, it's the same age of the person we were talking to when we were little. It's the body that is changing around that ageless center."
"Most people live in almost total darkness…people, millions of people whom you will never see, who don't know you, never will know you, people who may try to kill you in the morning, live in a darkness which...if you have that funny terrible thing which every artist can recognize and no artist can define...you are responsible to those people to...
"Everything is ecstasy, inside... Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-endings drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside...and you will remember."
"I enjoy tremendously every single moment of my life because death, all the time, is very close watching me and death might catch me. And every five minutes death don't catch me, I enjoy tremendously."
