Jack Kerouac Quotes - Page 18

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And he had a nice home in Ohio with wife, daughter, Christmas tree, two cars, garage, lawn, lawnmower, but he couldn't enjoy any of it because he really wasn't free. It was sadly true.

Jack Kerouac

Daughter, Nice, Home

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

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At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.

Jack Kerouac

Night, Light, White

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

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It's pretty amazing to see a guy, while steering at the wheel, suddenly raise his little 300 dollar German camera with one hand and snap something that's on the move in front of him, and through an unwashed windshield at that. (On the road with Robert Frank, 1958)

Jack Kerouac

Moving, Hands, Guy

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and I shudder sometimes to think of all that stellar mystery of how she IS going to get me in a future lifetime, wow - And I seriously do believe that will be my salvation, too. A long way to go.

Jack Kerouac

Believe, Thinking, Long

Jack Kerouac (2012). “Big Sur (Annotated)”, p.109, BookBaby

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It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night.

Jack Kerouac

Night, Rainy, Myth

"On the Road".

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The only alternative to sleeping out, hopping freights, and doing what I wanted, I saw in a vision would be to just sit with a hundred other patients in front of a nice television set in a madhouse, where we could be "supervised."

Jack Kerouac

Nice, Sleep, Vision

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.121, Penguin

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Anybody doesn't like these pitchers don't like potry, see? Anybody don't like potry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses. Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.

Jack Kerouac

Horse, Nice, Eye

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You were my last chance' she's said but don't all women say that? - But can it be by 'last chance' she doesn't mean mere marriage but some profoundly sad realization of something in me she really needs to go on living, at least that impression coming across anyway on the force of all the gloom we've shared -

Jack Kerouac

Mean, Needs, Realization

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She spoke of evenings in the country making popcorn on the porch. Once this would have gladdened my heart but because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.

Jack Kerouac

Country, Heart, Ideas

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

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Eager for bread and love.

Jack Kerouac

Love, Age, And Love

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

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Things are so hard to figure out when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly world.

Jack Kerouac

Wisdom, Silly, World

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.285, Penguin

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I clearly saw the skeleton underneath all this show of personality what is left of a man and all his pride but bones?

Jack Kerouac

Pride, Men, Skeletons

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Who doesn't feel studious when he doesn't have a girl with a Riviera suntan?

Jack Kerouac

Girl, Feels, Studious

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.42, Penguin

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It was my dream that screwed up, the stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America instead of trying various roads and routes.

Jack Kerouac

Dream, Stupid, Ideas

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.93, Penguin

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And I realize the unbearable anguish of insanity: how uninformed people can be thinking insane people are "happy," O God, in fact it was Irwin Garden once warned me not to think the madhouses are full of "happy nuts." (p. 200)

Jack Kerouac

Garden, Thinking, Nuts

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"What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls. "I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad.

Jack Kerouac

Girl, Hands, Two

"On the Road". Book by Jack Kerouac, 1957.

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I'd rather be thin than famous but I'm fat paste that in your broadway show

Jack Kerouac

Broadway, Fats, Shows

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The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis. She was nearsighted. When we got off to eat I had to lead her by the hand to the lunch counter. She bought my meals; my sandwiches were all gone. In exchange I told her long stories.

Jack Kerouac

Girl, Halloween, Moon

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.197, Penguin

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And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I had to get to Denver at once.

Jack Kerouac

Air, Blue, Mountain

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

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I swore I'd be in Chicago tomorrow, and made sure of that, taking a bus to Chicago, spending most of my money, and didn't give a damn, just as long as I'd be in Chicago tomorrow.

Jack Kerouac

Cities, Long, Giving

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.121, Penguin

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Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except that you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict.

Jack Kerouac

Writing, Men, Energy

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

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Life was dense, dark, ancient. They watched Dean, serious and insane at his raving wheel, with eyes of hawks. All had their hands outstretched. They had come down from the back mountains and higher places to hold forth their hands for something they thought civilization could offer, and they never dreamed the sadness and the poor broken delusion of it.

Jack Kerouac

Sadness, Eye, Dark

"On the Road".

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We should be wondering tonight, "Is there a world?" But I could go and talk on 5, 10, 20 minutes about is there a world, because there is really no world, cause sometimes I'm walkin' on the ground and I see right through the ground. And there is no world. And you'll find out.

Jack Kerouac

Tonight, World, Causes

"Is There A Beat Generation?". Forum at Hunter College, New York, November 8, 1958.

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And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on innocent cupboard doors it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void.

Jack Kerouac

Men, Doors, Feet

Jack Kerouac (1995). “Desolation Angels”, Riverhead Trade (Paperbacks)

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Aw I don't wanta go to no such thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.'... But you'll miss all that, just for some old wine.' There's wisdom in wine, goddam it!' I yelled. 'Have a shot!

Jack Kerouac

Wine, Missing, Drink

Jack Kerouac (1971). “The Dharma Bums”, p.168, Penguin

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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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