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Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac Quotes

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Famous Jack Kerouac Quotes

“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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“Way far back in the beginning of the world was the whirlwind warning that we could all be blown away like chips and cry- Men with tired eyes realize it now, and wait to deform and decay- with maybe they have the power of love yet in their hearts just the same, I just don't know what that word means anymore- All I want is an ice cream cone”

KnowsMenWorldWayWantHeartMeanEyeWaitingRealizingCryTiredIceBoredWarningDecayCreamIce CreamChipsPower Of LoveWhirlwindBlown AwayConesIce Cream ConesTired Eyes
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads. "They're so silent!" I said. "Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sitting there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin.”

ThinkingKnowsMenYearsMeanSaidFactsSilenceRocksPrayingMountainCreaturesSittingYeahSilentDustCoveredAtomsLiving CreaturesMonstrosity
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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“What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else.”

ThinkingKnowsMenMeanDoeEarthUniverseStarsDifferencesSittingEmptyEndlessAwakeEmptinessTerrace
Book:The Dharma Bums
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“I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.”

KnowsMenDoeFactsYoungMillionsYouthLonelyHungerYoung ManChestsMultitudesAmazedLocomotives
Book:Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings
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“Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the dead and with the other world, whatever it is; right now we could predict, if we only exerted enough mental will, what is going to happen within the next hundred years and be able to take steps to avoid all kinds of catastrophes. When a man dies he undergoes a mutation in his brain that we know nothing about now but which will be very clear someday if scientists get on the ball. The bastards right now are only interested in seeing if they can blow up the world.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldYearsKindEnoughHappensAbleDiesNextRealizingBrainStepsClearSeeingMankindRight NowHundredScientistBallsBlowContactAll KindsSomedayCatastropheOther WorldsMutation
Book:The Portable Jack Kerouac
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“Bop began with Jazz but one afternoon somewhere on a sidewalk maybe 1939, 1940, Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker or Thelonious Monk was walking past a men's clothing store on 42nd Street or South Main in L.A. and from a loudspeaker they suddenly heard a wild impossible mistake in jazz that could only have been heard inside their own imaginary head, and that is a new art. Bop.”

MenHas BeensArtPastMistakeImpossibleHeardStreetsWalkingJazzSouthStoresAfternoonClothingsImaginaryMonkCharlieSidewalkDizzyBops42nd Street
Book:The Portable Jack Kerouac
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