Jack Kerouac Quotes - Page 16

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Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that's the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly waters. And if your cans are redhot and you can't hold them in your hands, just use good old railroad gloves, that's all.

Jack Kerouac

Happiness, Running, Beach

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.7, Penguin

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What is he aching to do? What are we all aching to do? What do we want?” She didn’t know. She yawned. She was sleepy. It was too much. Nobody could tell. Nobody would ever tell. It was all over. She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost.

Jack Kerouac

Lovely, Want, Too Much

Jack Kerouac (2011). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: The Original Scroll”, p.345, Penguin UK

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fear life but don't die, your alone, everybody's alone, oh Cody Pomeray you can't win you can't lose all is ephemeral all is hurt

Jack Kerouac

Hurt, Winning, Ephemeral

Jack Kerouac (1972). “Visions of Cody”, London : André Deutsch

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Think what a great world revolution will take place when ... [there are] millions of guys all over the world with rucksacks on their backs tramping around the back country.

Jack Kerouac

Country, Journey, Thinking

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.203, Penguin

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The cowboy music twanged in the roadhouse and carried across the fields, all sadness. It was all right with me. I kissed my baby and we put out the lights.

Jack Kerouac

Baby, Sadness, Cowboy

Jack Kerouac (2007). “Road Novels 1957-1960”

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I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats.

Jack Kerouac

Cute, Eye, Hair

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Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."

Jack Kerouac

Writing, Judging, Feelings

"The portable Jack Kerouac".

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I am writing this book because we're all going to die - In the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream

Jack Kerouac

Mother, Dream, Sweet

Jack Kerouac (1972). “Visions of Cody”, London : André Deutsch

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Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said, "God, I love you" and looked to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other." To the children and the innocent it's all the same.

Jack Kerouac

God, Faith, Children

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.244, Penguin

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When the railroad trains moaned, and river-winds blew, bringing echoes through the vale, it was as if a wild hum of voices, the dear voices of everybody he had known, were crying: "Peter, Peter! Where are you going, Peter?" And a big soft gust of rain came down. He put up the collar of his jacket, and bowed his head, and hurried along.

Jack Kerouac

Rain, Echoes, Wind

Jack Kerouac (1959). “The Town and the City”

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And before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent; somewhat far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam. There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded - at least that's what I thought then.

Jack Kerouac

New York, Crazy, Clouds

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You have absolutely no regard but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what's hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you're silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time.

Jack Kerouac

Fun, Silly, Thinking

Jack Kerouac (2011). “On the Road”, p.228, Penguin UK

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The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?

Jack Kerouac

Wisdom, Sweet, Hate

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.211, Penguin

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Books, shmooks, this sickness has got me wishing if I can ever get out of this I'll gladly become a millworker and shut my big mouth.

Jack Kerouac

Book, Wish, Mouths

Jack Kerouac (2012). “Big Sur (Annotated)”, p.166, BookBaby

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God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn't know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; Dean had bought some in New York. It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever.

Jack Kerouac

New York, Night, Thinking

Jack Kerouac (2007). “Road Novels 1957-1960”

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Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.

Jack Kerouac

Girl, Vision, Would Be

Jack Kerouac (1995). “The Portable Jack Kerouac”, Viking Adult

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We fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America and all we could do was yell, I guess - across the night.

Jack Kerouac

Night, Land, America

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road”, Viking Press

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...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.

Jack Kerouac

Wisdom, Mean, Worry

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.219, Penguin

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The unspeakable visions of the individual.

Jack Kerouac

Vision, Individual, Unspeakable

Jack Kerouac (1993). “Visions of Cody”, p.389, Penguin

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We lay on our backs looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when he made life so sad and disinclined.

Jack Kerouac

Ceilings, Wonder, Made

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.156, Penguin

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and never really thought I'd amount to anything. It was precisely what I wanted the whole world to think; then I could sneak in, if that's what they wanted, and sneak out again, which I did.

Jack Kerouac

Thinking, Sneak In, World

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.152, Penguin

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They spent all week saving pennies and went out Saturdays to spend fifty bucks in three hours.

Jack Kerouac

Three, Saving, Fifty

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.160, Penguin

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Ah Japhy you taught me the final lesson of them all, you can't fall off a mountain.

Jack Kerouac

Fall, Mountain, Finals

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.86, Penguin

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Way far back in the beginning of the world was the whirlwind warning that we could all be blown away like chips and cry- Men with tired eyes realize it now, and wait to deform and decay- with maybe they have the power of love yet in their hearts just the same, I just don't know what that word means anymore- All I want is an ice cream cone

Jack Kerouac

Eye, Tired, Heart

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Is Virgin you trying to fathom me

Jack Kerouac

Trying, Fathom, Virgins

Jack Kerouac (2012). “Big Sur (Annotated)”, p.33, BookBaby

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Jack Kerouac

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Born: March 12, 1922
Died: October 21, 1969
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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