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I Woke Up As The Sun Was Reddening; And That Was The One Distinct Time In My Life, The Strangest Moment Of All, When I Didn't Know Who I Was - I Was Far Away From Home, Haunted And Tired With Travel, In A Cheap Hotel Room I'd Never Seen, Hearing The Hiss Of Steam Outside, And The Creak Of The Old Wood Of The Hotel, And Footsteps Upstairs, And All The Sad Sounds, And I Looked At The Cracked High Ceiling And Really Didn't Know Who I Was For About Fifteen Strange Seconds. I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.

-Jack Kerouac

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I Woke Up As

Jack Kerouac

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I Woke Up As The Sun Was Reddening; And That Was The One Distinct Time In My Life, The Strangest Moment Of All, When I Didn't Know Who I Was - I Was Far Away From Home, Haunted And Tired With Travel, In A Cheap Hotel Room I'd Never Seen, Hearing The Hiss Of Steam Outside, And The Creak Of The Old Wood Of The Hotel, And Footsteps Upstairs, And All The Sad Sounds, And I Looked At The Cracked High Ceiling And Really Didn't Know Who I Was For About Fifteen Strange Seconds. I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.

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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.

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.

All Our Best Men Are Laughed At In This Nightmare Land.

It Was All Completely Serious, All Completely Hallucinated, All Completely Happy.

Dean And I Both Swayed To The Rhythm And The It Of Our Final Excited Joy In Talking And Living To The Blank Traced End Of All Innumerable Riotous Angelic Particulars That Had Been Lurking In Our Souls All Our Lives.

You Can't Live In This World But There's Nowhere Else To Go.

Galatea Was A Serious Girl. She Was Pale And Looked Like Tears All Over. Big Ed Passed His Hand Through His Hair And Said Hello. She Looked At Him Steadily. "where Have You Been? Why Did You Do This To Me?" And She Gave Dean A Dirty Look; She Knew The Score. Dean Paid Absolutely No Attention; What He Wanted Now Was Food; He Asked Jane If There Was Anything. The Confusion Began Right There.

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.

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.

Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May?

For Life Is Holy And Every Moment Is Precious.

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.

John Clellon Holmes... And I Were Sitting Around Trying To Think Up The Meaning Of The Lost Generation And The Subsequent Existentialism And I Said 'you Know John, This Is Really A Beat Generation'; And He Leapt Up And Said, 'that's It, That's Right!'

I Realized Either I Was Crazy Or The World Was Crazy; And I Picked On The World. And Of Course I Was Right.

It Always Makes Me Proud To Love The World Somehow- Hate's So Easy Compared.

Pretty Girls Make Graves

When You've Understood This Scripture, Throw It Away. If You Can't Understand This Scripture, Throw It Away. I Insist On Your Freedom.

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.

As Far As I'm Concerned The Only Thing To Do Is Sit In A Room And Get Drunk

I'm Catholic And I Can't Commit Suicide, But I Plan To Drink Myself To Death.

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.

What Does It Mean That I Am In This Endless Universe, Thinking That I'm A Man Sitting Under The Stars On The Terrace Of The Earth, But Actually Empty And Awake Throughout The Emptiness And Awakedness Of Everything? It Means That I'm Empty And Awake, That I Know I'm Empty And Awake, And That There's No Difference Between Me And Anything Else.

There Are Worse Things Than Being Mad.

I'd Rather Hop Freights Around The Country And Cook My Food Out Of Tin Cans Over Wood Fires, Than Be Rich And Have A Home Or Work.

At Night In This Part Of The West The Stars, As I Had Seen Them In Wyoming, Were As Big As Roman Candles And As Lonely As The Prince Who's Lost His Ancestral Home And Journeys Across The Spaces Trying To Find It Again, And Knows He Never Will.

I'm Not A Beatnik. I'm A Catholic.

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.

Because Anybody Can Write, But Not Everybody Invents New Forms Of Writing. Gertrude Stein Invented A New Form Of Writing And Her Imitators Are Just "talents."

Sweet Life Continues In The Breeze, In The Golden Fields.

I Just Won't Sleep," I Decided. There Were So Many Other Interesting Things To Do.

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.

Whenever Spring Comes To New York I Can't Stand The Suggestion Of The Land That Come Blowing Over The River From New Jersey And I've Got To Go. So I Went.

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.

If You Own A Rug You Own Too Much.

And Silence Is The Golden Mountain

I'll Go To The South Of Sicily In The Winter, And Paint Memories Of Arles – I'll Buy A Piano And Mozart Me That – I'll Write Long Sad Tales About People In The Legend Of My Life – This Part Is My Part Of The Movie, Let's Hear Yours

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.

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.

The Taste Of Rain -- Why Kneel?

Something Great Is About To Happen To Me: I'm About To Love Somebody Very Much.

Think What A Great World Revolution Will Take Place When ... [there Are] Millions Of Guys All Over The World With Rucksacks On Their Backs Tramping Around The Back Country.

Forgive Everyone For Your Own Sins And Be Sure To Tell Them You Love Them Which You Do.

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.

The Golden Eternity Is { }

And I Shudder Sometimes To Think Of All That Stellar Mystery Of How She Is Going To Get Me In A Future Lifetime, Wow - And I Seriously Do Believe That Will Be My Salvation, Too. A Long Way To Go.

...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.

We Were On The Roof Of America And All We Could Do Was Yell

And The Stars Were Icicles Of Mockery

Is Virgin You Trying To Fathom Me

The Truth Of The Matter Is We Don't Understand Our Women; We Blame On Them And It's All Our Fault.

We All Agree It's Too Big To Keep Up With, That We're Surrounded By Life, That We'll Never Understand It, So We Center It All In By Swigging Scotch From The Bottle And When It's Empty I Run Out Of The Car And Buy Another One, Period.

There Was Nothing To Talk About Anymore. The Only Thing To Do Was Go.

You Seek Identity In The Midst Of Indistinguishab Le Chaos, In Sprawling Nameless Reality.

He Seems To Me To Be Headed For His Ideal Fate, Which Is Compulsive Psychosis Dashed With A Jigger Of Psychopathic Irresponsibility And Violence

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.

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Mankind Is Like Dogs, Not Gods - As Long As You Don't Get Mad They'll Bite You - But Stay Mad And You'll Never Be Bitten. Dogs Don't Respect Humility And Sorrow.

The Road Must Eventually Lead To The Whole World.

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.

I See As Much As Doors'll Allow, Open Or Shut.

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?

I'd Rather Be Thin Than Famous But I'm Fat Paste That In Your Broadway Show

The Only Truth Is Music.

Inspirational Music

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Whither Goest Thou, America, In Thy Shiny Car In The Night?

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Prison Is Where You Promise Yourself The Right To Live.

That's The Story Of My Life Rich Or Poor And Mostly Poor And Truly Poor.

Story Of My Life

...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.

No Time For Poetry But Exactly What Is.

Dharma Bums Refusing To Subscribe To The General Demand That They Consume Production And Therefore Have To Work For The Privilege Of Consuming, All That Cramp They Didn't Really Want Anyway Such As Refrigerators, Tv Sets, Cars, At Least New Fancy Cars, Certain Hair Oils And Deodorants And General Junk You Finally Always See A Week Later In The Garbage Anyway, All Of Them Imprisoned In A System Of Work, Produce, Consume, Work, Produce, Consume.

And This Is The Way A Novel Gets Written, In Ignorance, Fear, Sorrow, Madness, And A Kind Of Psychotic Happiness As An Incubator For The Wonders Being Born.

Rocks Are Space, And Space Is Illusion.

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.

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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.

It's All Too Much And Not Enough At The Same Time.

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.

Some's Bastards, Some's Ain't. That's The Score.

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.

You Can't Teach The Old Maestro A New Tune.

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.

The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones, The Ones Who Are Mad To Live, Mad To Talk, Mad To Be Saved, Desirous Of Everything At The Same Time, The Ones Who Never Yawn Or Say A Commonplace Thing, But Burn, Burn, Burn Like Fabulous Yellow Roman Candles Exploding Like Spiders Across The Stars.

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.

I Have Fallen In Love With You, God. Take Care Of Us All, One Way Or The Other.

The Yard Was Full Of Tomato Plants About To Ripen, And Mint, Mint, Everything Smelling Of Mint, And One Fine Old Tree That I Loved To Sit Under On Those Cool Perfect Starry California October Nights Unmatched Anywhere In The World.

My Witness Is The Empty Sky.

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.

The Happiness Consists In Realizing That It Is All A Great Strange Dream.

We Should Be Wondering Tonight, "is There A World?" But I Could Go And Talk On 5, 10, 20 Minutes About Is There A World, Because There Is Really No World, Cause Sometimes I'm Walkin' On The Ground And I See Right Through The Ground. And There Is No World. And You'll Find Out.

I Could Hear Dean, Blissful And Blabbering And Frantically Rocking. Only A Guy Who's Spent Five Years In Jail Can Go To Such Maniacal Helpless Extremes; Beseeching At The Portals Of The Soft Source, Mad With A Completely Phsycial Realization Of The Origins Of Life-bliss; Blindly Seeking To Return The Way He Came

Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers. What Rembrandt Or Van Gogh Saw In The Night Can Never Be Seen Again.

Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers.

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.

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.

The Page Is Long, Blank, And Full Of Truth. When I Am Through With It, It Shall Probably Be Long, Full, And Empty With Words.

I Feel Guilty For Being A Member Of The Human Race.

Because The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones.

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."

Keep It Kickwriting At All Costs Too, That Is, Write Only What Kicks You And Keeps You Overtime Awake From Sheer Mad Joy.

If Moderation Is A Fault, Then Indifference Is A Crime.

The Unspeakable Visions Of The Individual.

I Have Been Writing My Heart Out All My Life, But Only Getting A Living Out Of It Now.... ... It's Not A Question Of The Merit Of Art, But A Question Of Spontaneity And Sincerity And Joy I Say. I Would Like Everybody In The World To Tell His Full Life Confession And Tell It His Own Way And Then We'd Have Something To Read In Our Old Age.

I Felt Free And Therefore I Was Free.

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.

Beautiful Insane In The Rain

We Are Nothing. - Tomorrow We May Be Die. We Are Nothing. - You And Me.

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

I'm Going To Marry My Novels And Have Little Short Stories For Children.

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.

The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones, The Ones Who Are Mad To Live, Mad To Talk, Mad To Be Saved.

...do You Think God Made The World To Amuse Himself Because He Was Bored? Because If So He Would Have To Be Mean.

The Smog Was Heavy, My Eyes Were Weeping From It, The Sun Was Hot, The Air Stank, A Regular Hell Is L.a.

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.

One Fast Move Or I'm Gone,' I Realize, Gone The Way Of The Last Three Years Of Drunken Hopelessness Which Is A Physical And Spiritual And Metaphysical Hopelessness You Can't Learn In School No Matter How Many Books On Existentialism Or Pessimisn You Read, Or How Many Jugs Of Vision-producing Ayahuasca Drink, Or Mescaline Take, Or Peyote Goop Up With -

So Long And Take It Easy, Because If You Start Taking Things Seriously, It Is The End Of You.

Somewhere Along The Line, The Pearl Would Be Handed To Me.

I Was Suddenly Left With Nothing In My Hands But A Handful Of Crazy Stars.

Yeah," I Said, "but You're An Artist. You Don't Believe In Decency And Honesty And Gratitude. Where Shall We Eat?

My Karma Was To Be Born In America Where Nobody Has Any Fun Or Believes In Anything, Especially Freedom.

Ah, It Was A Fine Night, A Warm Night, A Wine-drinking Night, A Moony Night, And A Night To Hug Your Girl And Talk And Spit And Be Heavengoing.

What A Horror It Would Have Been If The World Was Real, Because If The World Was Real, It Would Be Immortal.

You Don't Know What To Say To Me Because The Kingdom Is Within...flesh And Blood's Dream...so You Fly Now, Pay Later, All Of Us...i Mean Actually It's Pay Now, Fly Later

I Went One Afternoon To The Church Of My Childhood And Had A Vision Of What I Must Have Really Meant With "beat"... The Vision Of The Word Beat As Being To Mean Beatific... People Began To Call Themselves Beatniks, Beats, Jazzniks, Bopniks, Bugniks And Finally I Was Called The "avatar" Of All This.

Sometimes I’d Get Mad Because Things Didn’t Work Out So Well, I’d Spoil A Flapjack, Or Slip In The Snowfield While Getting Water, Or One Time My Shovel Went Sailing Down Into The Gorge, And I’d Be So Mad I’d Want To Bite The Mountaintops And Would Come In The Shack And Kick The Cupboard And Hurt My Toe. But Let The Mind Beware, Though The Flesh Be Bugged, The Circumstances Of Existence Are Pretty Glorious.

Finding Nirvana Is Like Locating Silence.

I Felt Like Lying Down By The Side Of The Trail And Remembering It All

I Want To Work In Revelations, Not Just Spin Silly Tales For Money. I Want To Fish As Deep Down As Possible Into My Own Subconscious In The Belief That Once That Far Down, Everyone Will Understand Because They Are The Same That Far Down.

Walking On Water Wasn't Built In A Day.

Walking On Water

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.

Suppose We Suddenly Wake Up And See That What We Thought To Be This And That, Ain't This And That At All?

Beat Generation

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.

And Don't You Know That God Is Pooh Bear?

My Aunt Once Said That The World Would Never Find Peace Until Men Fell At Their Women's Feet And Asked For Forgiveness.

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.

But On Top Of All That, The Feelings About Princess, 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 And I Had Really No Lie Come To A Point Where I Regarded Lust As Offensive And Even Cruel. "pretty Girls Make Graves," Was My Saying, Whenever I'd Had To Turn My Head Around Involuntarily To Stare At The Incomparable Pretties Of Indian Mexico.

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.

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.

The Fact Was I Had The Vision... I Think Everyone Has... What We Lack Is The Method.

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.

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.

Absolutely No Way To Escape Enigmans.

...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.

Roaring Dreams Take Place In A Perfectly Silent Mind. Now That We Know This, Throw The Raft Away.

..and That Was The One Distinct Time In My Life, The Strangest Moment Of All, When I Didnt Know Who I Was

Details Are The Life Of Prose.

If You Tell A True Story, You Can't Be Wrong.

Something That You Feel Will Find Its Own Form.

There Is A Blessedness Surely To Be Believed, And That Is That Everything Abides In Eternal Ecstasy, Now And Forever.

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.

While Looking For The Light, You May Suddenly Be Devoured By The Darkness And Find The True Light

In My Medicine Cabinet, The Winter Fly Has Died Of Old Age.

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.

One Day I Will Find The Right Words, And They Will Be Simple.

Why Did I Allow Myself To Be Bored Ever In The Past And To Compensate For It Got High Or Drunk Or Rages Or All The Tricks People Have Because They Want Anything But Serene Understanding Of Just What There Is, Which Is After All So Much.

Night Is Longer Than Day For Those Who Dream & Day Is Longer Than Night For Those Who Make Their Dreams Comes True.

But There's No Joy At All, People Say "oh Well He's Drunk And Happy Let Him Sleep It Off"--the Poor Drunkard Is *crying*--he's Crying For His Mother And Father And Great Brother And Great Friend, He's Crying For Help. (p.111)

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)

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.

Isn't It True That You Start Your Life A Sweet Child Believing In Everything Under Your Father's Roof? Then Comes The Day Of The Laodiceans, When You Know You Are Wretched And Miserable And Poor And Blind And Naked, And With The Visage Of A Gruesome Grieving Ghost You Go Shuddering Through Nightmare Life.

...and Performing Our One And Noble Function Of The Time, Move.

How Clear The Realization One Is Going Mad -- The Mind Has A Silence, Nothing Happens In The Physique, Urine Gathers In Your Loins, Your Ribs Contract.

And Never Really Thought I'd Amount To Anything. It Was Precisely What I Wanted The Whole World To Think; Then I Could Sneak In, If That's What They Wanted, And Sneak Out Again, Which I Did.

Nothing Behind Me, Everything Ahead Of Me, As Is Ever So On The Road.

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.

The Beat Generation (coined In Playboy)

Don't Touch Me, I'm Full Of Snakes.

If You Dont [sic] Say What You Want, What's The Sense Of Writing?

It's Good-bye. But We Lean Forward To The Next Crazy Venture Beneath The Skies

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.

We Fumed And Screamed In Our Mountain Nook, Mad Drunken Americans In The Mighty Land. We Were On The Roof Of America And All We Could Do Was Yell, I Guess - Across The Night.

It Ain't Whatcha Write, It's The Way Atcha Write It.

Inspiration To Write

It Was A Rainy Night. It Was The Myth Of The Rainy Night.

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

Be In Love With Your Life, Every Detail Of It.

Equally Empty, Equally To Be Loved, Equally A Coming Buddha

I Loved The Way She Said 'la'; I Love The Way Everybody Says 'la' On The Coast; It's Their One And Only Golden Town When All Is Said And Done.

We Turned At A Dozen Paces, For Love Is A Duel, And Looked At Each Other For The Last Time.

The Sun Goes Down Long And Red. All The Magic Names Of The Valley Unrolled - Manteca, Madera, All The Rest. Soon It Got Dusk, A Grapy Dusk, A Purple Dusk Over Tangerine Groves And Long Melon Field; The Sun The Color Of Pressed Grapes, Slashed With Burgundy Red, The Fields The Color Of Love And Spanish Mysteries. I Stuck My Head Out The Window And Took Deep Breaths Of The Fragant Air. It Was The Most Beautiful Of All Moments.

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?

I Pictured Myself In A Denver Bar That Night, With All The Gang, And In Their Eyes I Would Be Strange And Ragged And Like The Prophet Who Has Walked Across The Land To Bring The Dark Word, And The Only Word I Had Was 'wow!

...[the Photographer] Can Be Considered A Kind Of Disembodied Burrowing Eye, A Conspirator Against Time And Its Hammers. His Work, Print After Print Of It, Seems To Call To Be Shown Before The Decay Which It Portrays Flattens All... Here Are The Records Of The Age Before An Imminent Collapse.

No Matter How You Travel, How 'successful' Your Tour, Or Foreshortened, You Always Learn Something And Learn To Change Your Thoughts.

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 -

I Think It's All Lovely Hallucination But I Love It Sorta.

Don't Use The Phone. People Are Never Ready To Answer It. Use Poetry.

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

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.

Because I Cannot Write My Native Language And Have No Native Home Anymore, And Am Amazed By That Horrible Homelessness Of All French-canadian S Abroad In America.

Native Language

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.

"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.

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!

If Critics Say Your Work Stinks It's Because They Want It To Stink And They Can Make It Stink By Scaring You Into Conformity With Their Comfortable Little Standards. Standards So Low That They Can No Longer Be Considered "dangerous" But Set In Place In Their Compartmental Understandings.

Holy Flowers Floating In The Air, Were All These Tired Faces In The Dawn Of Jazz America.

Bein Crazy Is The Least Of My Worries.

What Is He Aching To Do? What Are We All Aching To Do? What Do We Want?” She Didn’t Know. She Yawned. She Was Sleepy. It Was Too Much. Nobody Could Tell. Nobody Would Ever Tell. It Was All Over. She Was Eighteen And Most Lovely, And Lost.

And As Far As I Can See The World Is Too Old For Us To Talk About It With Our New Words.

Live, Travel, Adventure, Bless, And Don't Be Sorry.

And Nobody Knows What’s Going To Happen To Anybody Besides The Forlorn Rags Of Growing Old

All The Souls To Explore! - It's Not So Necessary To Love, Really, As It Is To Settle Something Deep With All Of Those Who Really Matter. Love And Hate Are The Same Things, Differently Sifted Through Personal... Pride, Or What Have You... Personal Pride Or Even Just Personal-ness.

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