Quotes from Jack Kerouac

No difference between the Morley of this morning and the Morley of last night, except his voice as he rattled on yakking in that cultured snide funny way of his was sorta cute with that morning freshness, like the way people's voices sound after getting up early in the morning, something faintly wistful and hoarse and eager in it, ready for a new day.

Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love;

Oh, I love, love, love women! I think women are wonderful! I love women!

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...

hey kid, you got ma-ree-wa-naa?

I decided someday to become a Thoreau of the Mountains. To live like Jesus and Thoreau, except for women.

perché le uniche persone che esistono per me sono i pazzi, i pazzi di voglia di vivere, di parole, di salvezza, i pazzi del tutto e subito, quelli che non sbadigliano mai e non dicono mai banalità ma bruciano, bruciano, bruciano come favolosi fuochi d'artificio gialli che esplodono simili a ragni sopra le stelle e nel mezzo si vede scoppiare la luce azzurra e tutti fanno?Oooooh!?.

He is the antithesis of Voltaire, the child of Leibniz.

well, lackadaddy.

And off we went to the sad and disinclined concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me.

They [the Jesuit boys] were full of corny quips and Eastern college talk and had nothing on their bird-beans except a lot of ill-understood Aquinas for stuffing for their pepper.

and all things tied together all over like rain connecting everybody the world over by chain touch.

Mad raging sunsets poured in seafoams of cloud through unimaginable crags, with every rose tint of hope beyond, I felt just like it, brilliant and bleak beyond words.

It was 3 children of the earth trying to decide something in the night and having all the weight of past centuries balooning in the dark before them.

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 (On the Road)

I don't know, I'm going as fast as I can and I don't think I have the time.

La seule chose après laquelle nous languissons durant notre existence, qui nous fait soupirer et gémir et souffrir toutes sortes de doucereuses nausées, c'est le souvenir de quelque félicité perdue que l'on a sans doute éprouvée dans le sein maternel et qui ne saurait se reproduire (mais nous nous refusons à l'admettre) que dans la mort. Mais qui souhaite mourir ?

and to the south another vaster darker storm closing in like a pincer; but Hozomeen mountain stood there returning the attack with a surl of silence.

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

strange Arabian figure that was pursuing me across the desert;

O Satan! Mephisto! Judas! O Benaiah! O evil eyes that glint beneath the lights! O clink of silver! O darkness, O death, O hell! Sheathed knives and chained wallets: lustful, grabbing, cheating, killing, hating, laughing in the lights . . .

After all a homeless man has reason to cry, everything in the world is pointed against him.

then a clear harmonic cry gave new suggestions of a tune that would someday be the only tune in the world and would raise men's souls to joy.

The sun goes down long and red. All the magic names of the valley unrolled—Manteca, Madera, all the rest. Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.