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Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac Quotes

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Famous Jack Kerouac Quotes

“I wished I could explain it to those I loved, my mother, to Japhy, but there just weren't any words to describe the nothingness and purity of it. "Is there a certain and definite teaching to be given to all living creatures?" was the question probably asked to beetle browed snowy Dipankara, and his answer was the roaring silence of the diamond.”

MotherCertainGivenAnswersSilenceTeachingCreaturesPurityDiamondNothingnessDefiniteLiving CreaturesRoaringBeetlesSnowy
Book:The Dharma Bums
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“One fast move or I'm gone,' I realize, gone the way of the last three years of drunken hopelessness which is a physical and spiritual and metaphysical hopelessness you can't learn in school no matter how many books on existentialism or pessimisn you read, or how many jugs of vision-producing Ayahuasca drink, or Mescaline take, or Peyote goop up with -”

WayYearsBookMatterSchoolLastsSpiritualMovingThreeRealizingVisionGoneDrinkExistentialismThree YearsMetaphysicalHopelessnessAyahuascaJugsPeyote
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“Listen closely... the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.”

WorldHas BeensDreamPayAttentionSilenceGoes OnEternalEternityEverlastingHush
Book:The Scripture of the Golden Eternity: Pocket Poets Number 51
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“Our radio plays rhythm and blues as we pass the joint back and forth in jutjawed silence both looking ahead with big private thoughts now so vast we can't communicate them anymore and if we tried it would take a million years and a billion books - Too late, too late, the history of everything we've seen together and separately has become a library in itself - The shelves pile higher - They're full of misty documents or documents of the Mist-.”

IfsYearsBookPlayBigsTogetherSilenceMillionsHigherLateLibraryRadioCommunicateBillionsRhythmToo LateDocumentsShelvesJointsMistBack And ForthMistyLooking AheadRhythm And BluesRadio Plays
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“She talks with a broken heart - Her voice lutes brokenly like a heart lost, musically too, like in a lost grove, it's almost too much to bear sometimes like some fantastic futuristic Jerry Southern singer in a nightclub who steps up to the mike in the spotlight in Las Vegas but doesn't even have to sing, just talk, to make men sigh and women wonder I guess.”

MenHeartSometimesLostVoiceWonderStepsToo MuchBrokenBearsSingersFantasticSouthernSighMikeVegasLas VegasStep UpJerrySpotlightGroveFuturisticNightclubs
Book:Big Sur
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“The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis. She was nearsighted. When we got off to eat I had to lead her by the hand to the lunch counter. She bought my meals; my sandwiches were all gone. In exchange I told her long stories.”

WayLongMadeStoriesHandsNightGirlGoneMoonMealsBusLunchHalloweenAcquaintanceSandwichesIndianaLong StoryIndianapolis
Book:On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“"What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls. "I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad.”

KnowsWantTryingMadeSaidTwoHandsTogetherUsedGirlAsksWaitingWonderMouthsTablesLaysExcitedPlanningCeilingsTwo DaysSo SadDenver
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“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 field; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. I stuck my head out the window and took deep breaths of the fragant air. It was the most beautiful of all moments.”

LongMomentsBeautifulNamesSunMagicAirMysteryFieldsColorRedWindowBreathsStuckValleysPurpleGrapesDeep BreathDuskGroveMelonsBurgundyTangerines
Book:On the Road
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“God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn't know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; Dean had bought some in New York. It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever.”

ThinkingKnowsMadeMomentsNightSilenceGoneForeverNew YorkHappeningsDecidedMadnessMythTeaSmokingAweDepartureDeanRainyRainy Night
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.”

MatterWhiteCitiesSawsMinutesWallLateBlueSmokeHillsHeightAfternoonRollingFabulousFogPotatoesSan FranciscoPatchesElevenMysticPacificAdvancingBay AreaOaklandLate AfternoonRolling Hills
Book:On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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