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.
On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word.
So therefore I dedicate myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my suffrances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being.
One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.
Jack Kerouac
But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?
They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see.
A sociable smile is nothing but a mouth full of teeth
Jack Kerouac
Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?
As far as I'm concerned the only thing to do is sit in a room and get drunk
Jack Kerouac
Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.
Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH...
I promise I shall never give up, and that I'll die yelling and laughing, and that until then I'll rush around this world I insist is holy and pull at everyone's lapel and make them confess to me and to all.
But, outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb and capable of doing horrible things.
Jack Kerouac
My eyes were glued on life
and they were full of tears.
Jack Kerouac
It'll take you eternities to get rid of me,' she adds sadly, which makes me jealous, I want her to say I'll never get rid of her - I wanta be chased till eternity till I catch her.
LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.
Jack Kerouac
Forgive everyone for your own sins and be sure to tell them you love them which you do.
And when the fog's over and the stars and the moon come out at night it'll be a beautiful sight.
Jack Kerouac
The beauty of things must be that they end.
Jack Kerouac
My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love.
Let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.
Jack Kerouac
Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.
Jack Kerouac
...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.
What difference does it make after all?--anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth? All in the mind.
Jack Kerouac
I wished I was on the same bus as her. A pain stabbed my heart as it did everytime I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world of ours.
The empty blue sky of space says 'All this comes back to me, then goes again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don't care, it still belongs to me
