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Jack Kerouac
73 quotes
“Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Alan Harrington (23 April 1949) published in Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956 (1996)
“All of life is a foreign country.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Clellon Holmes (24 June 1949), published in The Beat Vision: A Primary Sourcebook (1987) edited by Arthur Knight and Kit Knight, page 93.
“I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Ed White (5 July 1950) as published in The Missouri Review, Vol. XVII, No. 3, 1994, page 137, and also quoted in Jack Kerouac: Angelheaded Hipster (1996) by Steve Turner, p. 117
“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life but that great consciousness of life.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (November 1951) as published in the Kerouac ROMnibus
“Write in recollection and amazement for yourself”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1995) and in a letter to Don Allen (1958); published in Heave…
“Accept loss forever”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1995) and in a letter to Don Allen (1958); published in Heave…
“Believe in the holy contour of life”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1995) and in a letter to Don Allen (1958); published in Heave…
“Be in love with your life every detail of it”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1995). Sometimes misquoted as "Be in love with your life ever…
“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 (1922–1969) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Is There A Beat Generation?" forum at Hunter College, New York, New York (8 November 1958)
“Who knows, my God, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty?”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959)
“Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edith Parker Kerouac (28 January 1957); published in Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969 (1999)
“John Clellon Holmes ... and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent Existentialism and I said, 'You know, this is really a beat generation' and he leapt up and said 'That's it, that's right!'”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959), explaining the origins of the term the "Beat Generation".
“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.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959)
“Members of the generation that came of age after World War II-Korean War who join in a relaxation of social and sexual tensions, and who espouse anti-regimentation, mystic-disaffiliation, and material-simplicity values, supposedly as a result of cold-war disillusionment. Coined by Jack Kerouac.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Definition of "Beat Generation" offered to Random House publishers in 1959, after being asked him if there was anything he'd like to add to the definition they were preparing for the American College Dictionary: "Certai…
“It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New York Journal-American (8 Dec 1960)
“All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Visions of Gerard (1963)
“My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Satori in Paris (1966)
“You can't fight City Hall. It keeps changing its name.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: After Me, The Deluge" in The Chicago Tribune (28 September 1969)
“All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pomes All Sizes (1992)
“As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain highest perfect knowing.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book of Blues (1995)
“So long and take it easy, because if you start taking things seriously, it is the end of you.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings (1999)
“The fact that everybody in the world dreams every night ties all mankind together.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book of Dreams (1961) Foreword
“The tree looks like a dog, barking at heaven.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book of Haikus (2003)
“Everything belongs to me because I am poor.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Visions Of Cody (1973) and The Beginning Of Bop (1959)
“All you do is head straight for the grave, a face just covers a skull awhile. Stretch that skull-cover and smile.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Visions Of Cody (1973)
“What are you trying to do, Kerouac?" I'd ask myself in my sleepingbag at night, "trying to deny reality with all this Buddha stuff, ya jerk?" ... "Poor detailed immaculate incarnate fool, and you call yourself Self ... Take off your coat and crash wits." And I realized that all this Buddhism was a STRAIN at telling the untellable emptiness yet that nothing was truer, a perfect paradox.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meditation in the Woods (1958)
“I am going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kerouac, as quoted by Allen Ginsberg in The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice (2006), page 250.
“Your art is the Holy Ghost blowing through your soul.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A misquote. It derives from an interview that journalist Bruce Cook conducted with Kerouac in 1968 and reported in his book The Beat Generation (1971). According to Cook, Kerouac explained to him his method of writing: …
“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because 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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneth inmense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for? — sleep.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At one point the driver said, "For God's sakes, you're rocking the boat back there." Actually we were; the car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchements on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pretty girls make graves.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness...”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sociability is just a big smile, and a big smile is nothing but teeth.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then I added "Blah," with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling at this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do−just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do-.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize "The stars are words" and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One night I realized that when you give people understanding and encouragement a funny little meek childish look abashes their eyes, no matter what they've been doing they weren't sure it was right — lambies all over the world.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH...”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel guilty for being a member of the human race.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source