Jean Louis Lebris de Kerouac, who later came to be known as Jack Kerouac, was an American writer of poems and novels. Kerouac was one of the pioneering writers of the 1950s and 1960s, who was one of the icons of the ‘Beats Generation’ that rejected standard narratives in American society. Kerouac was an iconoclast par excellence who questioned some of the most sensitive topics in American society like religion, drug and promiscuity among other. Along with authors like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, he became one of the most influential intellectuals of the era. During his lifetime, Kerouac had become an underground icon of sorts but his untimely death at the age of 47 in 1969 made him a mainstream star. Following his death; plenty of books had also been published posthumously and his following has only grown. Some of his most famous works include Big Sur, Visions of Cody, Mexico City Blues, The Town and the City, The Dharma Bums and many other, which are still read by people from all across the world. Kerouac was a man of great wit and wisdom, who delivered some great one-liners in his real life and also in his considerable body of work. Here are some of the very best.
Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.
Jack Kerouac
There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.
Jack Kerouac
I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...
Jack Kerouac
My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it's bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad.
