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Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac Quotes

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Famous Jack Kerouac Quotes

“Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety - leaning into it with glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.”

WorldEyeBeautifulRocksMusicianLogicMadJazzWaveLovelyBrokeOfficialsMarchSwingsMudNew OrleansHornsVigorousSubtletyArmstrongBroke UpRagtime
Book:On the Road
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“In our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever...listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, It is all one vast awakened thing. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended.”

WorldMindIdeasSelfDreamRememberDiesBornSilenceKnownForeverOne ThingLessonsIllusionEssenceMortalsImaginaryAwakenedAlright
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“Anybody doesn't like these pitchers don't like potry, see? Anybody don't like potry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses. Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.”

WorldGivingKindLittlesHomeHandsBigsEyeAmericaFilmNiceTelevisionPoetMessagesShotsHorseCamerasRaisesFrankCowboyPitcherSnapsSwiss
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“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-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

PeopleWorldFeelingsNextSkyCrazyAdventureHugeTravelDrivingOptimisticGoodbyeTraveledVentureByeGood ByeInspiring TravelTravel The WorldTravel AdventureSuitcasesAdventure And TravelSpecksLife Is An AdventureNext AdventureDriving Away
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“The words are clear as in the reflection of the world on the water. Therefore write the Word at once, everywhere, from now till your hand is paralyzed, for THERE will be your work for GOD, since you can not work for God in other ways, and would not, & don't know how, or bend that way, from habit, & from talent in the use & signification & arrangement of the Word.”

KnowsWorldWayWritingUseHandsWaterKnow HowClearTalentHabitReflectionArrangementsCan NotParalyzed
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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“I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.”

WorldHomeSchoolPastBeautifulGirlHigh SchoolBiggerDeeperIceGet BetterApplesComing HomeAfternoonCreamPieIce CreamPretty GirlIowaPrettiestApple PieDes Moines
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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“I believed in a good home, in sane and sound living, in good food, good times, work, faith and hope. I have always believed in these things. It was with some amazement that I realized I was one of the few people in the world who really believed in these things without going around making a dull middle class philosophy out of it. I was suddenly left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars.”

PeopleWorldLifePhilosophyHomeHandsLeftStarsSoundClassCrazyMiddleI RealizedDullGood TimesMiddle ClassSaneHandfulAmazementGood FoodHope And Faith
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class 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 to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstacy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.”

ThinkingWorldWellsSchoolHouseStarsVoiceDarkPerfectRoomsSecretClassMiddleCryIdentityTelevisionCollegeExpressionCivilizationMysteriousMiddle ClassWildernessLiving RoomLawnsCampusGroomingFacelessDharma BumsProwlingThinking The Same
Book:The Dharma Bums
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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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“The bartenders are the regular band of Jack, and the heavenly drummer who looks up to the sky with blue eyes, with a beard, is wailing beer-caps of bottles and jamming on the cash register and everything is going to the beat - It's the beat generation, its béat, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown.”

WorldLooksHeartEyeGenerationsSkyBandBeatsBlueBeerLook UpHeavenlyBottlesCashBeardCapsDrummerRegisterBlue EyesBartenderWailingBeat Generation
Book:Desolation Angels
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“Her little shoulders drove me mad; I hugged her and hugged her. And she loved it. 'I love love,' she said, closing her eyes. I promised her beautiful love. I gloated over her. Our stories were told; we subsided into silence and sweet anticipatory thoughts. It was as simple as that. You could have all your Peaches and Bettys and Marylous and Ritas and Camilles and Inezes in this world; this was my girl and my kind of girlsoul, and I told her that.”

WorldKindLittlesSaidStoriesEyeBeautifulGirlSimpleSilenceThis WorldSweetMadShouldersHer EyesClosingPeachesMy GirlBeautiful LoveCamille
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“I am writing this book because we're all going to die - In the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream”

WorldWayWritingHeartMadeBookDreamHandsMotherDiesFatherLeftDarkMy OwnSleepCommonAttentionLordWifeLonelinessStupidSweetBrotherPrideBedDespairMy WifeDisappearGuidesBrokeMy BrotherTragicMy SisterFar AwayConsolationMy Own LifeGuardedHeart BrokeSleeping InSupplication
Book:Visions of Cody
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“The secret of this kind of climbing, is like Zen. Don't think. Just dance along. It's the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you don't hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like zen.~ Japhy”

ThinkingWorldKindLittlesReasonProblemSecretStepsSpecialWalkingEasierCuteFinding YourselfFlatsClimbingMonotonousJust DanceBoulders
Book:Road Novels 1957-1960
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“It’s a sort of furtiveness … Like we were a generation of furtive. You know, with an inner knowledge there’s no use flaunting on that level, the level of the ‘public’, a kind of beatness – I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are – and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world … It’s something like that. So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation.”

KnowsWorldKindMeanUseMightFormLevelsGenerationsBeatsConventionsWearinessBeat GenerationFlaunting
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“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.”

ThinkingWorldWayMindLittlesMatterNightUniverseStarsRealizingRoomsThis WorldMountainEndlessMilky Way
Book:Lonesome Traveler
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