"Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain"
"You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention."
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Source: Jack Kerouac (2004). “Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954”, Viking Press
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"Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars."
"Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now."
"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
"Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion."
"Put down the pen someone else gave you. No one ever drafted a life worth living on borrowed ink."