16 Invigorating Jack Kerouac Quotes

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

“Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.”

“The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”

The Dharma Bums

“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-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

“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?”

“This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do.”

“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.”

“I just won’t sleep,” I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.”

“Better to sleep in an uncomfortable bed free, than sleep in a comfortable bed unfree.”

On the Road

“It always makes me proud to love the world somehow- hate’s so easy compared.”

“I feel guilty for being a member of the human race.”

“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”

“The more ups and downs, the more joy I feel. The greater the fear, the greater the happiness I feel.”

Big Sur