Context

Howl is not your grandmother's poem.

These lines open the poem and prepare us for the wild ride that is to come. The poem is exactly what it's titled: a howl, a raw, emotional outburst. Howl—along with Kerouac's On the Road—played a large role in bringing the Beat movement into public consciousness.

It was and is still met with much controversy with its many and explicit references to drugs and homosexuality. If you think these first lines are something, you better fasten your seatbelt. Ginsberg is just getting his crazy warmed up.

Where you've heard it

It wasn't always cool to be Allen Ginsberg, but now that it is,  you're bound to hear this line from a fair few "angelheaded hipsters" yourself. People who are Cool-with-a-capital-C are always quoting this one to up their street cred.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Quoting Howl = bad idea.

Simple as that. This poem is too big to be quoted. Try reading the first half of the first stanza. You know that many of the lines start with "who" and that the whole point is possibly to describe this "who," but you can't remember who the "who" is or if you even knew who "who" was to begin with (hint: it's the "best minds").

It's a poem that's so wild and raw that even trying to quote the opening lines is going to end up with a lot of people questioning your sanity.