Jack Kerouac Quotes - Page 18

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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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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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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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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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galatea was a serious girl. she was pale and looked like tears all over. big ed passed his hand through his hair and said hello. she looked at him steadily. "where have you been? why did you do this to me?" and she gave dean a dirty look; she knew the score. dean paid absolutely no attention; what he wanted now was food; he asked jane if there was anything. the confusion began right there.

Jack Kerouac

Girl, Dirty, Hair

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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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They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see.

Jack Kerouac

Wisdom, Sleep, Thinking

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.279, Penguin

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His friends said, "Why do you have that ugly thing hanging there?" and Bull said, "I like it because it's ugly." All his life was in that line.

Jack Kerouac

Ugly Things, Bulls, Lines

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

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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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We all agree it's too big to keep up with, that we're surrounded by life, that we'll never understand it, so we center it all in by swigging Scotch from the bottle and when it's empty I run out of the car and buy another one, period.

Jack Kerouac

Running, Scotch, Car

Jack Kerouac (2012). “Big Sur (Annotated)”, p.56, BookBaby

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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 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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Eager for bread and love.

Jack Kerouac

Love, Age, And Love

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

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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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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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But night would come and with it the mountain moon and the lake would be moon - laned and I'd go out and sit in the grass and meditate facing west, wishing there were a Personal God in all this impersonal matter.

Jack Kerouac

Wish, Matter

"The Dharma Bums".

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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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...and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.

Jack Kerouac

Moving, Noble, Function

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.219, 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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Sometimes I’d get mad because things didn’t work out so well, I’d spoil a flapjack, or slip in the snowfield while getting water, or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge, and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops and would come in the shack and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe. But let the mind beware, though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.

Jack Kerouac

Hurt, Mad, Water

Jack Kerouac (2011). “The Dharma Bums”, p.254, Penguin UK

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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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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 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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Everything is perfect on the street again, the world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, but none of us know it. The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.

Jack Kerouac

Dream, Perfect, Rose

Jack Kerouac (2007). “Lonesome Traveler”, p.40, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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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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Jack Kerouac

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

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