“I never did know exactly what was meant by the term "The Beats," but let's say that the original meeting, association, comradeship of Allen Ginsberg, myself, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, who's not here, Lew Welch, who's dead, Gregory Corso, for me, to a somewhat lesser extent (I never knew Gregory as well as the others) did embody a criticism and a vision which we shared in various ways, and then went our own ways for many years.”

Source: Collected Poems

67th Academy Award Speech (1995)

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 3

Source: Lords and Ladies

Source: The Burning Plain (1997), p.41 (Chapter 4) [page numbers as per the Alyson Publications Paperback Edition, April 2004]

Source: Good in Bed

The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) The Purple Wig
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

Source: The Lazarus Project

"The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959)
Context: I went one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must have really meant with "Beat"… the vision of the word Beat as being to mean beatific... People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks, bugniks and finally I was called the "avatar" of all this.