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Jack Kerouac Quotes - Page 12

All Quotes Adventure Age Art Childhood Children Confusion Country Darkness Drinking Earth Emptiness Eternity Feelings Fun Genius Giving Goodbye Hate Heart Heaven Hell Home Inspirational Journey Joy Kindness Language Leaving Life Literature Los Angeles Love Lying Madness Moon Morning Mountain Pain Passion Past Personality Pride Rain Running Sadness School Silence Sleep Sorrow Soul Travel Vision Waiting Walking Water Wine Winter Wisdom Worry Writing

Between incomprehensible and incoherent sits the madhouse. I am not in the madhouse.

Between incomprehensible and incoherent sits the madhouse. I am not in the madhouse.

Madhouses

Jack Kerouac, Ann Charters (1995). “Jack Kerouac: selected letters, 1940-1956”, Viking Pr

I mean, why on earth (outside sickness and hangovers) aren't people continually drunk? I want ecstasy of the mind all the time.

Hangover, Mean, People

Jack Kerouac (1999). “Selected Letters, 1957-1969”, Viking Adult

All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.

Men, Land, Big Sur

Jack Kerouac (1992). “Pomes All Sizes: Pocket Poets Number 48”, p.158, City Lights Books

But yet, but yet, woe, woe unto those who think that the Beat Generation means crime, delinquency, immorality, amorality ... woe unto those who attack it on the grounds that they simply don't understand history and the yearning of human souls ... woe in fact unto those who make evil movies about the Beat Generation where innocent housewives are raped by beatniks! ... woe unto those who spit on the Beat Generation, the wind'll blow it back.

Mean, Thinking, Blow

I wished I could explain it to those I loved, my mother, to Japhy, but there just weren't any words to describe the nothingness and purity of it. "Is there a certain and definite teaching to be given to all living creatures?" was the question probably asked to beetle browed snowy Dipankara, and his answer was the roaring silence of the diamond.

Mother, Teaching, Silence

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.157, Penguin

Yeah," I said, "but you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude. Where shall we eat?

Gratitude, Honesty, Believe

William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac (2009). “And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks”, p.100, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

February dawn -- frost on the path Where I paced all winter.

Winter, Dawn, Frost

Jack Kerouac (2013). “Book of Haikus”, p.51, Penguin

That's the story of my life rich or poor and mostly poor and truly poor.

Rich Or Poor, Stories, Story Of My Life

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.45, Penguin

And the Hippos were boiled in their tanks!

Tanks, Beat Generation, Hippo

William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac (2009). “And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks”, p.185, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities.

Cities, Los Angeles, Brutal

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.180, Penguin

I like it because its ugly

Ugly

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.228, Penguin

Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America.

Flower, Tired, Air

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

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Writing, Recollection, Amazement

"Belief & Technique For Modern Prose: List of Essentials" in a letter to Arabelle Porter (28 May 1955); published in "Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1940-1956" by Jack Kerouac, 1995.

I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all

Lying, Sides, Remember

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.61, Penguin

It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever.

Thinking, Forever, Moments

Jack Kerouac (1976). “On the Road”, p.104, Penguin

One fast move or I'm gone,' I realize, gone the way of the last three years of drunken hopelessness which is a physical and spiritual and metaphysical hopelessness you can't learn in school no matter how many books on existentialism or pessimisn you read, or how many jugs of vision-producing Ayahuasca drink, or Mescaline take, or Peyote goop up with -

Spiritual, Moving, Book

The truth of the matter is we don't understand our women; we blame on them and it's all our fault.

Matter, Faults, Blame

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.210, Penguin

Down in Denver, all I did was die.

Denver, Dies

Jack Kerouac (1976). “On the Road”, p.144, Penguin

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.

Mean, People, Childhood

Jack Kerouac, Ann Charters (1995). “The portable Jack Kerouac”, Penguin Group USA

The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.

Wisdom, Long, Pages

Jack Kerouac (2000). “Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings”, p.83, Penguin

...but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified my longing.

Reading, Bumps, Landscape

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

Sal, we gotta go and never stop going 'till we get there.' 'Where we going, man?' 'I don't know but we gotta go.

Wisdom, Men, Road Life

Jack Kerouac (1957). “On the Road”, Viking Press

But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?

Thinking, Land, Waiting

Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.220, Penguin

...do you think God made the world to amuse himself because he was bored? Because if so he would have to be mean.

Mean, Thinking, Bored

Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.201, Penguin

And with joy you realize for the first time "Thinking's just like not thinking — So I don't have to think any more".

Life, Thinking, Joy

"The Portable Jack Kerouac".

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