Background Image
...
I'm Right There, Swimming The River Of Hardships But I Know How To Swim.
-Jack Kerouac
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

I'm Right There, Swimming

Jack Kerouac
...
I'm Right There, Swimming The River Of Hardships But I Know How To Swim.

Understanding the Quote: "i'm right there, swimming the river of hardships but i know how..."

This quote by Jack Kerouac reflects deeply on the theme of swimming. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Swimming, Rivers, Hardship, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jack Kerouac interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is celebrated for insightful thoughts on swimming and rivers. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 7
Topic
Swimming
Rivers
Hardship
More From Jack Kerouac
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.
Dream
Essence
Ideas
We Are Nothing. - Tomorrow We May Be Die. We Are Nothing. - You And Me.
May
Tomorrow
Dies
The Golden Eternity Is { }
Golden
Eternity
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.
Dream
Silence
Attention
I Was A Man Of The Earth, Precisely As I Had Dreamed I Would Be.
Men
Would Be
Earth
Forgive Everyone For Your Own Sins And Be Sure To Tell Them You Love Them Which You Do.
Wisdom
Forgiving
Sin
My Witness Is The Empty Sky.
Travel
Aquarius
Sky
I Have All The Time In The World From Life To Life To Do What Is To Do, To Do What Is Done, To Do The Timeless Doing.
Done
World
Dharma Bums
The Silence Was An Intense Roar.
Silence
Intense
When The Railroad Trains Moaned, And River-winds Blew, Bringing Echoes Through The Vale, It Was As If A Wild Hum Of Voices, The Dear Voices Of Everybody He Had Known, Were Crying: "peter, Peter! Where Are You Going, Peter?" And A Big Soft Gust Of Rain Came Down. He Put Up The Collar Of His Jacket, And Bowed His Head, And Hurried Along.
Rain
Echoes
Wind
"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.
Girl
Hands
Two
The More Ups And Downs, The More Joy I Feel. The Greater The Fear, The Greater The Happiness I Feel.
Joy
Feels
Ups & Downs
And I Said, 'that Last Thing Is What You Can't Get, Carlo. Nobody Can Get To That Last Thing. We Keep On Living In Hopes Of Catching It Once And For All.
Honesty
Lasts
Said
There Is Universal Substance Which Is Divine Substance Because Where Else Can It Be?
Substance
Divine
Universal
No Time For Poetry But Exactly What Is.
Poetry
Crafts
I Suddenly Discovered The Delight Of Rebellion.
Delight
Rebellion
Put Down The Pen Someone Else Gave You. No One Ever Drafted A Life Worth Living On Borrowed Ink.
Ink
Life Worth Living
Living On
My Aunt Once Said That The World Would Never Find Peace Until Men Fell At Their Women's Feet And Asked For Forgiveness.
Wisdom
Aunt
Men
One Day I Will Find The Right Words, And They Will Be Simple.
Life
Wisdom
Writing
Houses Are Full Of Things That Gather Dust
Wisdom
Dust
House
I'm Going To Marry My Novels And Have Little Short Stories For Children.
Wisdom
Children
Stories
But They Need To Worry And Betray Time With Urgencies False And Otherwise, Purely Anxious And Whiny, Their Souls Really Won't Be At Peace Unless They Can Latch To An Established And Proven Worry And Having Once Found It They Assume Facial Expressions To Fit And Go With It, Which Is, You See, Unhappiness, And All The Time It All Flies By Them And They Know It And That Too Worries Them No End.
Expression
Worry
Soul
They Spent All Week Saving Pennies And Went Out Saturdays To Spend Fifty Bucks In Three Hours.
Three
Saving
Fifty
I Nudged Myself Closer To The Ledge And Closed My Eyes And Thought 'oh What A Life This Is, Why Do We Have To Be Born In The First Place, And Only So We Can Have Our Poor Gentle Flesh Laid Out To Such Impossible Horrors As Huge Mountains And Rock And Empty Space,' And With Horror I Remembered The Famous Zen Saying, 'when You Get To The Top Of A Mountain, Keep Climbing.' The Saying Made My Hair Stand On End; It Had Been Such Cute Poetry Sitting On Alvah's Straw Mats.
Cute
Eye
Hair
Don't Think Of Words When You Stop But To See Picture Better.
Inspirational
Thinking
Vision
I Spent My Entire Youth Writing Slowly With Revisions And Endless Rehashing Speculation And Deleting And Got So I Was Writing One Sentence A Day And The Sentence Had No Feeling. Goddamn It, Feeling Is What I Like In Art, Not Craftiness And The Hiding Of Feelings.
Art
Writing
Feelings
She Brooded And Bit Her Rich Lips: My Soul Began Its First Sink Into Her, Deep, Heady, Lost; Like Drowning In A Witches' Brew, Keltic, Sorcerous, Starlike.
Soul
Firsts
Lips
One Night I Realized That When You Give People Understanding And Encouragement A Funny Little Meek Childish Look Abashes Their Eyes, No Matter What They've Been Doing They Weren't Sure It Was Right - Lambies All Over The World.
Encouragement
Eye
Night
Finding Nirvana Is Like Locating Silence.
Wisdom
Silence
Dharma Bums
...notice How He Will Come To Manhood With His Own Particular Soul Bespeaking Itself Through The Windows Which Are His Eyes, And Such Lovely Eyes Surely Do Prophesy And Indicate The Loveliest Of Souls.
Eye
Soul
Lovely
Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers. What Rembrandt Or Van Gogh Saw In The Night Can Never Be Seen Again. Born Writers Of The Future Are Amazed Already At What They're Seeing Now, What We'll All See In Time For The First Time, And Then See Imitated Many Times By Made Writers.
Writing
Night
Giving
In All This Welter Of Women I Still Hadn't Got One For Myself, Not That I Was Trying Too Hard, But Sometimes I Felt Lonely To See Everybody Paired Off And Having A Good Time And All I Did Was Curl Up In My Sleeping Bag In The Rosebushes And Sigh And Say Bah. For Me It Was Just Red Wine In My Mouth And A Pile Of Firewood
Lonely
Wine
Sleep
The Closer You Get To Real Matter, Rock Air Fire And Wood, Boy, The More Spiritual The World Is.
Spiritual
Wisdom
Real
I Felt Free And Therefore I Was Free.
Felt
She Spoke Of Evenings In The Country Making Popcorn On The Porch. Once This Would Have Gladdened My Heart But Because Her Heart Was Not Glad When She Said It I Knew There Was Nothing In It But The Idea Of What One Should Do.
Country
Heart
Ideas
You Seek Identity In The Midst Of Indistinguishab Le Chaos, In Sprawling Nameless Reality.
Reality
Identity
Chaos
You Aren't Ever Going To Be Anything In This World Unless You Do What You Want To Do, When You Want To Do It--don't Plan Anything, Just Go Out And Do It.
World
Want
Plans
...and Performing Our One And Noble Function Of The Time, Move.
Moving
Noble
Function
I Like It Because Its Ugly
Ugly
Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers. What Rembrandt Or Van Gogh Saw In The Night Can Never Be Seen Again.
Night
Giving
Design
Beautiful Insane In The Rain
Beautiful
Rain
Insane
Happy. Just In My Swim Shorts, Barefooted, Wild-haired, In The Red Fire Dark, Singing, Swigging Wine, Spitting, Jumping, Running - That's The Way To Live. All Alone And Free In The Soft Sands Of The Beach.
Running
Beach
Wine
And Nobody Knows What’s Going To Happen To Anybody Besides The Forlorn Rags Of Growing Old
Rags
Growing
Forlorn
You Don't Realize What A Strain It Is On The Nerves To Write Or Think-of-writing All Day Long, And To Sleep Full Of Nervous Dreams, And To Wake Up Not Knowing Who One Is: This All Stems From Anxiety About Finishing The Book, About Time 'growing Short', Etc., And The Perpetual Strain Of Invention.
Dream
Book
Writing
Aw I Don't Wanta Go To No Such Thing, I Just Wanta Drink In Alleys.'... But You'll Miss All That, Just For Some Old Wine.' There's Wisdom In Wine, Goddam It!' I Yelled. 'have A Shot!
Wine
Missing
Drink
What A Horror It Would Have Been If The World Was Real, Because If The World Was Real, It Would Be Immortal.
Real
Would Be
World
Suppose We Suddenly Wake Up And See That What We Thought To Be This And That, Ain't This And That At All?
Wake Up
Beat Generation
God Was Gone; It Was The Silence Of His Departure. It Was A Rainy Night. It Was The Myth Of The Rainy Night. Dean Was Popeyed With Awe. This Madness Would Lead Nowhere. I Didn't Know What Was Happening To Me, And I Suddenly Realized It Was Only The Tea That We Were Smoking; Dean Had Bought Some In New York. It Made Me Think That Everything Was About To Arrive - The Moment When You Know All And Everything Is Decided Forever.
New York
Night
Thinking
Something Good Will Come Out Of All Things Yet — And It Will Be Golden And Eternal Just Like That.
All Things
Good Will
Oh My God, Sociability Is Just A Big Smile And A Big Smile Is Nothing But Teeth, I Wish I Could Just Stay Up Here And Rest And Be Kind." But Somebody Brought Up Some Wine And That Started Me Off.
Wine
Wish
Teeth
It Was All Completely Serious, All Completely Hallucinated, All Completely Happy.
Serious
It's Only Through Form That We Can Realize Emptiness
Emptiness
Realizing
Form
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.
Lonely
Men
Doe
Never Mistake Talking About Writing For Actual Writing.
Mistake
Writing
Talking
"what Do You Want Out Of Life?" I Asked, And I Used To Ask That All The Time Of Girls.
Girl
Wisdom
Want
It Is Possible For The Human Spirit To Win After All.
Winning
Spirit
Humans
As Far As I'm Concerned The Only Thing To Do Is Sit In A Room And Get Drunk
Wisdom
Drunk
Rooms
Your Mind Makes Out The Orange By Seeing It, Hearing It, Touching It, Smelling It, Tasting It And Thinking About It But Without This Mind, You Call It, The Orange Would Not Be Seen Or Heard Or Smelled Or Tasted Or Even Mentally Noticed, It's Actually, That Orange, Depending On Your Mind To Exist! Don't You See That? By Itself It's A No-thing, It's Really Mental, It's Seen Only Of Your Mind. In Other Words It's Empty And Awake.
Thinking
Orange
Touching
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.
Stars
Night
Thinking
...the Tale That's Told For No Other Reason But Companionship, Which Is Another (and My Favorite) Definition Of Literature, The Tale That's Told For Companionship And To Teach Something Religious, Of Religious Reverence, About Real Life, In This Real World Which Literature Should (and Here Does) Reflect.
Religious
Real
Doe
Pretty Girls Make Graves
Girl
Pretty Girl
Graves
Rather, I Think One Should Write, As Nearly As Possible, As If He Were The First Person On Earth And Was Humbly And Sincerly Putting On Paper That Which He Saw And Experienced And Loved And Lost; What His Passing Thoughts Were And His Sorrows And Desires.
Writing
Thinking
Sorrow
I Am Young Now And Can Look Upon My Body And Soul With Pride. But It Will Be Mangled Soon, And Later It Will Begin To Disintegrate, And Then I Shall Die, And Die Conclusively. How Can We Face Such A Fact, And Not Live In Fear?
Pride
Soul
Looks
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.
Heart
Eye
Beer
There Is A Blessedness Surely To Be Believed, And That Is That Everything Abides In Eternal Ecstasy, Now And Forever.
Forever
Ecstasy
Blessedness
Return Those Shoes To The Shoemaker Return This Hand To My Father This Pillow To The Pillowmaker Those Slippers To The Shop. That Wainscot To The Carpenter, But My Mind My Tranquil And Eternal Mind Return It To Whom?
Life And Love
Father
Hands
We Were On The Roof Of America And All We Could Do Was Yell
America
Roof
And With Joy You Realize For The First Time "thinking's Just Like Not Thinking — So I Don't Have To Think Any More".
Life
Thinking
Joy
My Shoes Are Clean From Walking In The Rain.
Rain
Shoes
Clean
They Build Their Own Hells.
Hell
You Have Absolutely No Regard But Yourself And Your Damned Kicks. All You Think About Is What's Hanging Between Your Legs And How Much Money Or Fun You Can Get Out Of People And Then You Just Throw Them Aside. Not Only That But You're Silly About It. It Never Occurs To You That Life Is Serious And That There Are People Trying To Make Something Decent Out Of It Instead Of Just Goofing All The Time.
Fun
Silly
Thinking
Your Buddhism Has Made You Mean Ray And Makes You Even Afraid To Take Your Clothes Off For A Simple Healthy Orgy
Mean
Buddhism
Simple
The Details Are The Life Of It, I Insist, Say Everything On Your Mind, Don’t Hold Back, Don’t Analyze Or Anything As You Go Along, Say It Out.
Wisdom
Mind
Details
I Saw That My Life Was A Vast Glowing Empty Page And I Could Do Anything I Wanted.
I Hate You
Glowing
Pages
All I Wanted And All Neal Wanted And All Anybody Wanted Was Some Kind Of Penetration Into The Heart Of Things Where, Like In A Womb, We Could Curl Up And Sleep The Ecstatic Sleep That Burroughs Was Experiencing With A Good Big Mainline Shot Of M. And Advertising Executives In Ny Were Experiencing With Twelve Scotch & Sodas In Stouffers Before They Made The Drunkard's Train To Westchester---but Without Hangovers.
Hangover
Heart
Sleep
Last Night I Walked Clear Down To Times Square & Just As I Arrived I Suddenly Realized I Was A Ghost - It Was My Ghost Walking On The Sidewalk.
Night
Squares
Lasts
His Friends Said, "why Do You Have That Ugly Thing Hanging There?" And Bull Said, "i Like It Because It's Ugly." All His Life Was In That Line.
Ugly Things
Bulls
Lines
The Bus Roared On. I Was Going Home In October. Everybody Goes Home In October.
Home
October
Going Home
Rest And Be Kind, You Don't Have To Prove Anything
Writing
Be Kind
Kind
Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May?
Love
Wisdom
May
Lying Mouth To Mouth, Kiss To Kiss In The Pillow Dark, Loin To Loin In Unbelievable Surrendering Sweetness So Distant From All Our Mental Fearful Abstractions It Makes You Wonder Why Men Have Termed God Antisexual Somehow (p. 148)
Lying
Dark
Kissing
It Is Not My Fault That Certain So-called Bohemian Elements Have Found In My Writings Something To Hang Their Peculiar Beatnik Theories On.
Writing
Peculiar
Elements
And When The Fog's Over And The Stars And The Moon Come Out At Night It'll Be A Beautiful Sight.
Beautiful
Stars
Moon
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.
Wisdom
Eye
Mad
Believe In The Holy Contour Of Life.
Believe
Relaxation
Holy
I'd Also Gone Through An Entire Year Of Celibacy Based On My Feeling That Lust Was The Direct Cause Of Birth Which Was The Direct Cause Of Suffering And Death.
Years
Suffering And Death
Feelings
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.
Life
Stars
Philosophy
Prison Is Where You Promise Yourself The Right To Live.
Promise
Prison
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
Cute
Thinking
Climbing
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.
Stars
School
Dark
The Truth Of The Matter Is We Don't Understand Our Women; We Blame On Them And It's All Our Fault.
Matter
Faults
Blame
I Wished I Could Explain It To Those I Loved, My Mother, To Japhy, But There Just Weren't Any Words To Describe The Nothingness And Purity Of It. "is There A Certain And Definite Teaching To Be Given To All Living Creatures?" Was The Question Probably Asked To Beetle Browed Snowy Dipankara, And His Answer Was The Roaring Silence Of The Diamond.
Mother
Teaching
Silence
He Seems To Me To Be Headed For His Ideal Fate, Which Is Compulsive Psychosis Dashed With A Jigger Of Psychopathic Irresponsibility And Violence
Fate
Psychosis
Violence
Marylou Was Watching Dean As She Had Watched Him Clear Across The Country And Back, Out Of The Corner Of Her Eye--with A Sullen, Sad Air, As Though She Wanted To Cut Off His Head And Hide It In Her Closet, An Envious And Rueful Love Of Him So Amazingly Himself, All Raging And Sniffy And Crazy-wayed, A Smile Of Tender Dotage But Also Sinister Envy That Frightened Me About Her, A Love She Knew Would Never Bear Fruit Because When She Looked At His Hangjawed Bony Face With Its Male Self-containment And Absentmindedness She Knew He Was Too Mad.
Country
Crazy
Eye
I'd Rather Be Thin Than Famous But I'm Fat Paste That In Your Broadway Show
Broadway
Fats
Shows
And Before Me Was The Great Raw Bulge And Bulk Of My American Continent; Somewhat Far Across, Gloomy, Crazy New York Was Throwing Up Its Cloud Of Dust And Brown Steam. There Is Something Brown And Holy About The East; And California Is White Like Washlines And Emptyheaded - At Least That's What I Thought Then.
New York
Crazy
Clouds
Great Things Are Not Accomplished By Those Who Yield To Trends And Fads And Popular Opinion.
Inspirational
Life
Beautiful
Then It's Goodbye, Sangsara For Me Besides, Girls Aren't As Good As They Look And Samadhi Is Better Than You Think When It Starts In Hitting Your Head In With Buzz Of Glittergold Heaven's Angels, Wailing, Saying We've Been Waiting For You Since Morning, Jack Why Were You So Long Dallying In The Sooty Room? This Transcendental Brilliance Is The Better Part (of Nothingness I Sing) Okay. Quit. Mad. Stop.
Girl
Goodbye
Morning
The Only Alternative To Sleeping Out, Hopping Freights, And Doing What I Wanted, I Saw In A Vision Would Be To Just Sit With A Hundred Other Patients In Front Of A Nice Television Set In A Madhouse, Where We Could Be "supervised."
Nice
Sleep
Vision
As I Grew Older I Became A Drunk. Why? Because I Like Ecstasy Of The Mind.
Drunk
Mind
Grew
I Don't Wanta Hear All Your Word Descriptions Of Words Words Words You Made Up All Winter, Man I Wanta Be Enlightened By Actions.
Winter
Men
Action
Night Is Longer Than Day For Those Who Dream & Day Is Longer Than Night For Those Who Make Their Dreams Comes True.
Good Night
Goodnight
Dream
And You Have Been Forever, And Will Be Forever, And All The Worrisome Smashings Of Your Foot On Innocent Cupboard Doors It Was Only The Void Pretending To Be A Man Pretending Not To Know The Void.
Men
Doors
Feet
Equally Empty, Equally To Be Loved, Equally A Coming Buddha
Empty
What's In Store For Me In The Direction I Don't Take?
Wisdom
Stores
Walking On Water Wasn't Built In A Day.
Water
Walking On Water
Walking
You Were My Last Chance' She's Said But Don't All Women Say That? - But Can It Be By 'last Chance' She Doesn't Mean Mere Marriage But Some Profoundly Sad Realization Of Something In Me She Really Needs To Go On Living, At Least That Impression Coming Across Anyway On The Force Of All The Gloom We've Shared -
Mean
Needs
Realization
Don't Drink To Get Drunk. Drink To Enjoy Life.
Drinking
Drunk
Enjoy Life
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.
Men
Blow
Years
Roaring Dreams Take Place In A Perfectly Silent Mind. Now That We Know This, Throw The Raft Away.
Dream
Wisdom
Mind
It's Pretty Amazing To See A Guy, While Steering At The Wheel, Suddenly Raise His Little 300 Dollar German Camera With One Hand And Snap Something That's On The Move In Front Of Him, And Through An Unwashed Windshield At That. (on The Road With Robert Frank, 1958)
Moving
Hands
Guy
Hell Man, I Know Very Well You Didn't Come To Me Only To Want To Become A Writer, And After All What Do I Really Know About It Except That You've Got To Stick To It With The Energy Of A Benny Addict.
Writing
Men
Energy
Eager For Bread And Love.
Love
Age
And Love
A Pain Stabbed My Heart As It Did Every Time I Saw A Girl I Loved Who Was Going The Opposite Direction In This Too-big World.
Life
Girl
Wisdom
It Was My Dream That Screwed Up, The Stupid Hearthside Idea That It Would Be Wonderful To Follow One Great Red Line Across America Instead Of Trying Various Roads And Routes.
Dream
Stupid
Ideas
Sweet Life Continues In The Breeze, In The Golden Fields.
Sweet
Golden
Fields
I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.
Scared
Ghost
Stranger
I Realized These Were All The Snapshots Which Our Children Would Look At Someday With Wonder, Thinking Their Parents Had Lived Smooth, Well-ordered Lives And Got Up In The Morning To Walk Proudly On The Sidewalks Of Life, Never Dreaming The Raggedy Madness And Riot Of Our Actual Lives, Our Actual Night, The Hell Of It, The Senseless Emptiness.
Dream
Wisdom
Morning
And The Story Of Love Is A Long Sad Tale Ending In Graves.
Wisdom
Love Is
Long
Cliches Are Truisms And All Truisms Are True
Cliche
Truism
Don't Stop To Think Of The Words When You Do Stop, Just Stop To Think Of The Picture Better-and Let Your Mind Off Yourself In This Work.
Thinking
Mind
I Want A Blaze Of Light To Flame In Me Forever In A Timeless, Dear Love Of Everything. And Why Should I Pretend To Want Anything Else?
Light
Flames
Forever
My Life Is A Vast Inconsequential Epic.
Epic
Life Is
Inconsequential
Pain Or Love Or Danger Makes You Real Again.
Wisdom
Pain
Real
When You Start Separating People From Their Rivers, What Have You Got? Bureaucracy!
Rivers
People
Bureaucracy
Desolation, Desolation, I Owe So Much To Desolation.
Desolation
I'm Not A Beatnik. I'm A Catholic.
Catholic
Beatnik
I Felt The Sensation Of Each Of The Directions I Mentally And Emotionally Turned Into Amazed At All The Possible Directions You Can Take With Different Motives That Come In Like It Can Make You A Different Person — I’ve Often Thought Of This Since Childhood Of Suppose Instead Of Going Up Columbus As I Usually Did I’d Turn Into Filbert Would Something Happen That At The Time Is Insignificant Enough But Would Be Like Enough To Influence My Whole Life In The End? — What’s In Store For Me In The Direction I Don’t Take?
Childhood
Different
Would Be
Who Knows, My God, But That The Universe Is Not One Vast Sea Of Compassion Actually, The Veritable Holy Honey, Beneath All This Show Of Personality And Cruelty?
Compassion
Sea
Personality
I Have The Right Ideas, But My Words Are Too... Complicated. I Need To Simplify Them, So That People Won't Get Lost In The Dark When They See And Hear Them. I Want Them To Shine Like Beacons Of Light In A World Of Overly Complicated Darkness. One Day I Will Find The Right Words, And They Will Be Simple.
Writing
Dark
Simple
To Think That So Much Comes To So Little, To Think That Life Is Really Short.
Thinking
Littles
Life Is
I Was Halfway Across America, At The Dividing Line Between The East Of My Youth And The West Of My Future.
America
East
Lines
But Night Would Come And With It The Mountain Moon And The Lake Would Be Moon - Laned And I'd Go Out And Sit In The Grass And Meditate Facing West, Wishing There Were A Personal God In All This Impersonal Matter.
Wish
Matter
And Still The Void Is Still And'll Never Move - But I Will Be The Void, Moving Without Having Moved.
Moving
Void
Stills
Besides, All My New York Friends Were In The Negative, Nightmare Position Of Putting Down Society And Giving Their Tired Bookish Or Political Or Psychoanalytical Reasons, But Dean Just Raced In Society, Eager For Bread And Love.
New York
Tired
Giving
Somewhere Along The Line, The Pearl Would Be Handed To Me.
Would Be
Lines
Pearls
We Were All Delighted, We All Realized We Were Leaving Confusion And Nonsense Behind And Performing Our One And Noble Function Of The Time, Move.
Moving
Confusion
Leaving
It’s Not That I Can’t Fall In Love. It’s Really That I Can’t Help Falling In Love With Too Many Things All At Once. So, You Must Understand Why I Can’t Distinguish Between What’s Platonic And What Isn’t, Because It’s All Too Much And Not Enough At The Same Time.
Falling In Love
Too Much
Helping
And Silence Is The Golden Mountain
Silence
Mountain
Golden
Be Crazy Dumbsaint Of The Mind.
Crazy
Mind
Being Crazy
This Was A Manuscript Of The Night We Couldn’t Read.
Night
Manuscripts
Ah, If I Could Realize, If I Could Forget Myself And Devote My Meditations To The Freeing, The Awakening And The Blessedness Of All Living Creatures Everywhere I'd Realize What There Is, Is Ecstasy.
Meditation
Awakening
Realizing
I Didn't Know What To Say. I Felt Like Crying, Goddammit Everybody In The World Wants An Explanation For Your Acts And For Your Very Being.
Life
World
Want
The Best Teacher Is Experience And Not Through Someone's Distorted Point Of View
Wisdom
Teacher
Views
The Bus Roared Through Indiana Cornfields That Night; The Moon Illuminated The Ghostly Gathered Husks; It Was Almost Halloween. I Made The Acquaintance Of A Girl And We Necked All The Way To Indianapolis. She Was Nearsighted. When We Got Off To Eat I Had To Lead Her By The Hand To The Lunch Counter. She Bought My Meals; My Sandwiches Were All Gone. In Exchange I Told Her Long Stories.
Girl
Halloween
Moon
Live, Travel, Adventure, Bless, And Don't Be Sorry.
Inspirational
Life
Beautiful
Here I Was At The End Of America...no More Land...and Nowhere Was Nowhere To Go But Back
Land
America
Nowhere To Go
The Four Inevitabilities: 1. Musty Books. 2. Uninteresting Nature. 3. Dull Existence. 4. Blank Nirvana, Buy That Boy.
Book
Boys
Four
This Was Really The Way My Whole Road Experience Began, And The Things That Were To Come Are Too Fantastic Not To Tell.
Way
Fantastic
Whole
We Wandered In A Frenzy And A Dream (301).
Dream
Frenzy
This Is The Story Of America. Everybody's Doing What They Think They're Supposed To Do.
4th Of July
Thinking
America
So I Rushed Past The Pretty Girls, And The Prettiest Girls In The World Live In Des Moines.
Girl
Past
World
I'm Catholic And I Can't Commit Suicide, But I Plan To Drink Myself To Death.
Suicide
Drinking
Beer
And I Realize The Unbearable Anguish Of Insanity: How Uninformed People Can Be Thinking Insane People Are "happy," O God, In Fact It Was Irwin Garden Once Warned Me Not To Think The Madhouses Are Full Of "happy Nuts." (p. 200)
Garden
Thinking
Nuts
I Promise I Shall Never Give Up, And That I'll Die Yelling & Laughing.
Life
Giving Up
Yelling
I Feel Guilty For Being A Member Of The Human Race.
Wisdom
Race
Big Sur
Never Dreaming, Was I, Poor Jack Duluoz, That The Soul Is Dead. That From Heaven Grace Descends . . . No Doctor Pisspot Poorpail To Tell Me; No Example Inside My First And Only Skin. That Love Is The Heritage, And Cousin To Death. That The Only Love Can Only Be The First Love, The Only Death The Last, The Only Life Within, And The Only Word . . . Choked Forever.
Love
Dream
Cousin
As Early Pioneers In The Knowing, That When You Lose Your Reason, You Attain Highest Perfect Knowing.
Knowing
Perfect
Pioneers
Who Can Leap The World's Ties And Sit With Me Among White Clouds?
Clouds
White
Ties
Somebody Had Tipped The American Continent Like A Pinball Machine And All The Goofballs Had Come Rolling To La In The Southwest Corner. I Cried For All Of Us. There Was No End To The American Sadness And The American Madness. Someday We'll All Start Laughing And Roll On The Ground When We Realize How Funny It's Been.
Sadness
Laughing
Machines
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.
Wisdom
Stars
Spring
Sure Baby, Mañana. It Was Always Mañana. For The Next Few Weeks That Was All I Heard––mañana A Lovely Word And One That Probably Means Heaven.
Baby
Mean
Heaven
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.
Life
Running
Stars
The Unspeakable Visions Of The Individual.
Vision
Individual
Unspeakable
Nothing Behind Me, Everything Ahead Of Me, As Is Ever So On The Road.
Wisdom
Travel
Inspire
No Fear Or Shame In The Dignity Of Yr Experience, Language & Knowledge
Writing
Dignity
Language
Fear Life But Don't Die, Your Alone, Everybody's Alone, Oh Cody Pomeray You Can't Win You Can't Lose All Is Ephemeral All Is Hurt
Hurt
Winning
Ephemeral
Life Was Dense, Dark, Ancient. They Watched Dean, Serious And Insane At His Raving Wheel, With Eyes Of Hawks. All Had Their Hands Outstretched. They Had Come Down From The Back Mountains And Higher Places To Hold Forth Their Hands For Something They Thought Civilization Could Offer, And They Never Dreamed The Sadness And The Poor Broken Delusion Of It.
Sadness
Eye
Dark
I'm Stuck Struggling In The Cold Water, And All I Can Do Is Grieve, Grieve, In The Hoar Necessitous Horror Of The Morning, Bitterly I Hate Myself, Bitterly It's Too Late Yet While I Feel Better I Still Feel Ephemeral And Unreal And Unable To Straighten My Thoughts Or Even Really Grieve, In Fact I Feel Too Stupid To Be Really Bitter, In Short I Don't Know What I'm Doing And I'm Being Told What To Do.
Morning
Hate
Stupid
Struggle To Sketch The Flow That Already Exists Intact In Mind.
Struggle
Writing
Mind
Life Must Be Rich And Full Of Loving--it's No Good Otherwise, No Good At All, For Anyone.
Wisdom
Rich
And The Stars Were Icicles Of Mockery
Stars
Icicles
Mockery
In My Madness I Was Actually In Love With Her For The Few Hours It All Lasted; It Was The Same Unmistakable Ache And Stab Across The Mind, The Same Sighs, The Same Pain, And Above All The Same Reluctance And Fear To Approach.
Pain
Mind
Madness
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.
Heart
Men
Vegas
Everything Is Ecstasy Inside. We Just Don't Know It Because Of Our Thinking-minds. But In Our True Blissful Essence Of Mind [it] Is Known That Everything Is Alright Forever And Forever And Forever.
Thinking
Essence
Forever
We Tiptoed Around Each Other Like Heartbreaking New Friends.
Heartbreaking
New Friends
Our Radio Plays Rhythm And Blues As We Pass The Joint Back And Forth In Jutjawed Silence Both Looking Ahead With Big Private Thoughts Now So Vast We Can't Communicate Them Anymore And If We Tried It Would Take A Million Years And A Billion Books - Too Late, Too Late, The History Of Everything We've Seen Together And Separately Has Become A Library In Itself - The Shelves Pile Higher - They're Full Of Misty Documents Or Documents Of The Mist-.
Book
Years
Play
How I Wished I'd Have Had A Camera Of My Own, A Mad Mental Camera That Could Register Pictorial Shots, Of The Photographic Artist Himself Prowling About For His Ultimate Shot - An Epic In Itself. (on The Road With Robert Frank, 1958)
Epic
Artist
Mad
I Looked Up At The Dark Sky And Prayed To God For A Better Break In Life And A Better Chance To Do Something For The Little People I Loved.
Dark
Sky
People
No Fear Or Shame In The Dignity Of Your Experience, Language, And Knowledge.
Love You
Loss
Forever
The First Sip [of Tea] Is Joy, The Second Is Gladness, The Third Is Serenity, The Fourth Is Madness, The Fifth Is Ecstasy.
Joy
Serenity
Tea
Yeah," I Said, "but You're An Artist. You Don't Believe In Decency And Honesty And Gratitude. Where Shall We Eat?
Gratitude
Honesty
Believe
I Wish The Whole World Was Dead Serious About Food Instead Of Silly Rockets And Machines And Explosives Using Everybody's Food Money To Blow Their Heads Off Anyway.
Silly
Blow
Wish
As We Crossed The Colorado-utah Border I Saw God In The Sky In The Form Of Huge Gold Sunburning Clouds Above The Desert That Seemed To Point A Finger At Me And Say, "pass Here And Go On, You're On The Road To Heaven.
Clouds
Utah
Sky
An Awful Realization That I Have Been Fooling Myself All My Life Thinking There Was A Next Thing To Do To Keep The Show Going And Actually I'm Just A Sick Clown And So Is Everybody Else
Thinking
Sick
Realization
The Air Was So Sweet In New Orleans It Seemed To Come In Soft Bandannas; And You Could Smell The River And Really Smell The People, And Mud, And Molasses, And Every Kind Of Tropical Exhalation, With Your Nose Suddenly Removed From The Dry Ices Of A Northern Winter.
Sweet
Winter
New Orleans
Sal, We Gotta Go And Never Stop Going 'till We Get There.' 'where We Going, Man?' 'i Don't Know But We Gotta Go.
Wisdom
Men
Road Life
Swinging On Delicate Hinges The Autumn Leaf Almost Off The Stem.
Fall
Autumn
Leafs
Happy. Just In My Swim Shorts, Barefooted, Wild-haired, In The Red Fire Dark, Singing, Swigging Wine, Spitting, Jumping, Running—that's The Way To Live. All Alone And Free In The Soft Sands Of The Beach By The Sigh Of The Sea Out There, With The Ma-wink Fallopian Virgin Warm Stars Reflecting On The Outer Channel Fluid Belly Waters. And If Your Cans Are Redhot And You Can't Hold Them In Your Hands, Just Use Good Old Railroad Gloves, That's All.
Happiness
Running
Beach
He Had Never Felt Anything Like That Before - Yet Somehow He Knew That From Now On He Would Always Feel Like That, Always, And Something Caught At His Throat As He Realized What A Strange Sad Adventure Life Might Get To Be, Strange And Sad And Still Much More Beautiful And Amazing Than He Could Ever Have Imagined Because It Was So Really, Strangely Sad.
Beautiful
Adventure
Might
To The Children And The Innocent It's All The Same.
Children
Vapor
Innocent
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?
Thinking
Land
Waiting
You Can't Live In This World But There's Nowhere Else To Go.
World
This World
A Fool Forgetting All The Ideals And Joys I Knew Before, In My Recent Years Of Drinking And Disappointment, What Does He Care If He Hasn't Got Any Money: He Doesn't Need Any Money, All He Needs Is His Rucksack With Those Little Plastic Bags Of Dried Food And A Good Pair Of Shoes And Off He Goes And Enjoys The Privileges Of A Millionaire In Surroundings Like This.
Disappointment
Drinking
Years
Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers.
Writing
Giving
Genius
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.
Mean
Men
Thinking
...but I Preferred Reading The American Landscape As We Went Along. Every Bump, Rise, And Stretch In It Mystified My Longing.
Reading
Bumps
Landscape
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.
Goodbye
Travel
Crazy
If Moderation Is A Fault, Then Indifference Is A Crime.
Wisdom
Empathy
Faults
Jumping From Boulder To Boulder And Never Falling, With A Heavy Pack, Is Easier Than It Sounds; You Just Can't Fall When You Get Into The Rhythm Of The Dance.
Fall
Jumping
Boulders
Trending Author
Mike Huckabee
Dan Ariely
Teresa Palmer
Logan Pearsall Smith
LeAnn Rimes
J. Cole
Category
Information