Quotations (11)

1 to 11 of 11 items
And did you form an opinion as to whether or not the book called "Howl and Other Poems" has any literary merit? -I think it has no literary merit. Go ahead. -In order to have literary style, you must have form, diction, fluidity, clarity.…
It is my opinion that if it has any literary value, it's negligible. I endeavored to arrive at my opinion on an objective basis. For example, a great literary work, or even a fairly great literary work, would obviously be exceedingly…
"What do you want to do? What is your heart's desire?" Finally I said... what I'd really like to do is to just quit all this and... get a small room with Peter and devote myself to my writing and contemplation and fxcking and smoking pot…
I very soon realized that it was all... a fear-trap... Illusory! What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!…
But it's funny in our law, we are allowed to use expert witnesses to testify as to literary merit, but we are not allowed to bring in, we will say, the average man to testify that when he reads the book, he doesn't understand it. He…
The United States Supreme Court has said that obscenity is construed to mean "having a substantial tendency to corrupt "by arousing lustful desires." Is the word relevant to what the author is trying to say, or did he just use it to be…
Now, I suppose he could have said that, the secret hero of these poems, this "cocksman," this "Adonis of Denver," joy to memory of his innumerable conquests at the Waldorf Astoria... or at dinner at Chasen's, or after one or two drinks, in…
What is "prurient"? And to whom? And the material so described is dangerous to some unspecified, susceptible reader. It is interesting that the person applying such standards of censorship rarely feels as if their own physical or moral…
The poem is misinterpreted as... a promotion of homosexuality. Actually, it's... more like a promotion of frankness, about any subject. If you're a foot fetishist, you write about feet. If you're a stock-market freak, you can write about…
There are a number of words used in "Howl" that are presently considered coarse and vulgar in some circles of the community, and in other circles, such words are in everyday use. The author of "Howl" has used those words because he…
No two persons think alike. We were all made from the same form but in different patterns. Would there be any freedoms of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid, innocuous euphemism? An author should be real in treating…