Jack Kerouac

Novelist, Poet

Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet, best known for his seminal work 'On the Road', which captures the spirit of the Beat Generation.

Born
March 12, 1922
Died
October 21, 1969
Quotes
460
Rank
#173

Quote collection

Jack Kerouac quotes (page 13 of 23)

460 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet
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"Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads. "They're so silent!" I said. "Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sitting there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin."

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

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"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move."

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"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."

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

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"A man who allows wild passion to arise within, himself burns his heart, then after burning adds the wind that thereto which ignites the fire again, or not, as the case may be."

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"I'd sleep and forget it; I had my own life, my own sad and ragged life forever."

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"And the story of love is a long sad tale ending in graves."

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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."

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"I loved the way she said 'LA'; I love the way everybody says 'LA' on the Coast; it's their one and only golden town when all is said and done."

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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."

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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"

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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."

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"All the souls to explore! - It's not so necessary to love, really, as it is to settle something deep with all of those who really matter. Love and hate are the same things, differently sifted through personal... pride, or what have you... personal pride or even just personal-ness."

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"Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift."

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"And still the Void is still and'll never move - But I will be the Void, moving without having moved."

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"And then we’ll all go off to sweet life, ‘cause now is the time and we all know time!"

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