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Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac Quotes

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Famous Jack Kerouac Quotes

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”

KnowsWholeMomentsHomeWisdomSoundRoomsSunStrangeTiredScaredStrangerWoodsHearingWhole LifeGhostHotelSecondsFar AwayFifteenCeilingsFootstepsSteamCrackedHotel RoomsUpstairsAway From HomeRoad LifeOld Wood
Book:On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

YearsLooksLongFeelingsWisdomDreamSeemsPastRememberFacesLyingSongLostFeltSidesWaterMillionsPiecesChildhoodDyingYears AgoEternityForgottenCloudsWoodsFamiliarGoldenRelativeManhoodTrailsFamiliarityDriftingOverheadNature BeautyLonesomeNature And BeautyLying DownDharma Bums
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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“And just for a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, wiht a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. - Sal Paradise”

MindMomentsWantedMovingFallHeavenStepsMagicLandHolyAngelShadowEssenceShiningMortalsRealmsParadiseEmptinessSensationsEcstasyVoidHeelsTimelessFlewKickingDovePhantomsHurryingLotusesBleakness
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“You have absolutely no regard but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what's hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you're silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time.”

PeopleThinkingTryingLife IsFunSeriousRegardLegsSillyKicksDecent
Book:On the Road
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“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. But who wants to die?”

WantKindWisdomHateDiesLostOne ThingSweetAll KindsBlissRemembranceSighWombWanting To DieNausea
Book:On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life.”

KnowsBelieveChildrenFatherPoorSweetBlindGhostNakedMiserableGrievingNightmareRoofWretchedShudderingSweet Child
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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