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The One Thing That We Yearn For In Our Living Days, That Makes Us Sigh And Groan And Undergo Sweet Nauseas Of All Kinds, Is The Remembrance Of Some Lost Bliss That Was Probably Experienced In The Womb And Can Only Be Reproduced (though We Hate To Admit It) In Death. But Who Wants To Die?

-Jack Kerouac

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The One Thing That

Jack Kerouac

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The One Thing That We Yearn For In Our Living Days, That Makes Us Sigh And Groan And Undergo Sweet Nauseas Of All Kinds, Is The Remembrance Of Some Lost Bliss That Was Probably Experienced In The Womb And Can Only Be Reproduced (though We Hate To Admit It) In Death. But Who Wants To Die?

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I Told Terry I Was Leaving. She Had Been Thinking About It All Night And Was Resigned To It. Emotionlessly She Kissed Me In The Vineyard And Walked Off Down The Row. We Turned At A Dozen Paces, For Love Is A Duel, And Looked At Each Other For The Last Time.

And Still The Void Is Still And'll Never Move - But I Will Be The Void, Moving Without Having Moved.

And When The Fog's Over And The Stars And The Moon Come Out At Night It'll Be A Beautiful Sight.

It Made Me Think That Everything Was About To Arrive - The Moment When You Know All And Everything Is Decided Forever.

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Burroughs Is The Greatest Satirical Writer Since Jonathan Swift.

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

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.

I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.

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.

The Closer You Get To Real Matter, Rock Air Fire And Wood, Boy, The More Spiritual The World Is.

Some Of My Most Neurotically Fierce Bitterness Is The Result Of Realizing How Untrue People Have Become.

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!

And Then We’ll All Go Off To Sweet Life, ‘cause Now Is The Time And We All Know Time!

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.

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.

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.

I Realized That I Had Died And Been Reborn Numberless Times But Just Didn't Remember Because The Transitions From Life To Death And Back Are So Ghostly Easy, A Magical Action For Naught, Like Falling Asleep And Waking Up Again A Million Times, The Utter Casualness And Deep Ignorance Of It.

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.

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

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

And What Does The Rain Say At Night In A Small Town, What Does The Rain Have To Say? Who Walks Beneath Dripping Melancholy Branches Listening To The Rain? Who Is There In The Rain’s Million-needled Blurring Splash, Listening To The Grave Music Of The Rain At Night, September Rain, September Rain, So Dark And Soft? Who Is There Listening To Steady Level Roaring Rain All Around, Brooding And Listening And Waiting, In The Rain-washed, Rain-twinkled Dark Of Night?

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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.

Who Doesn't Feel Studious When He Doesn't Have A Girl With A Riviera Suntan?

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.

The First Sip [of Tea] Is Joy, The Second Is Gladness, The Third Is Serenity, The Fourth Is Madness, The Fifth Is Ecstasy.

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.

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.

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.

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I Like It Because Its Ugly

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At Lilac Evening I Walked With Every Muscle Aching Among The Lights Of 27th And Welton In The Denver Colored Section, Wishing I Were A Negro, Feeling That The Best The White World Had Offered Was Not Enough Ecstasy For Me, Not Enough Life, Joy, Kicks, Darkness, Music, Not Enough Night.

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

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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.

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

Stick At It Like A Benni Addict

Scribbled Secret Notebooks, And Wild Typewritten Pages, For Yr Own Joy

Something That You Feel Will Find Its Own Form.

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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?

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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?

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I Was Having A Wonderful Time And The Whole World Opened Up Before Me Because I Had No Dreams.

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The Bus Roared On. I Was Going Home In October. Everybody Goes Home In October.

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Pain Or Love Or Danger Makes You Real Again.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Vanity Of Vanities… All Is Vanity.’ You Kill Yourself To Get To The Grave. Especially You Kill Yourself To Get To The Grave Before You Die; And The Name Of The Grave Is ‘success’, The Name Of That Grave Is Hullabullo Boom Boom Horseshit.

The Beauty Of Things Must Be That They End.

Walking On Water Wasn't Built In A Day.

Walking On Water

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.

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

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But Yet, But Yet, Woe, Woe Unto Those Who Think That The Beat Generation Means Crime, Delinquency, Immorality, Amorality ... Woe Unto Those Who Attack It On The Grounds That They Simply Don't Understand History And The Yearning Of Human Souls ... Woe In Fact Unto Those Who Make Evil Movies About The Beat Generation Where Innocent Housewives Are Raped By Beatniks! ... Woe Unto Those Who Spit On The Beat Generation, The Wind'll Blow It Back.

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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.

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.

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.

Ah Japhy You Taught Me The Final Lesson Of Them All, You Can't Fall Off A Mountain.

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The Road Must Eventually Lead To The Whole World.

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?

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

...but I Preferred Reading The American Landscape As We Went Along. Every Bump, Rise, And Stretch In It Mystified My Longing.

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

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.

One Man Practicing Kindness In The Wilderness Is Worth All The Temples This World Pulls.

Remove Literary, Grammatical And Syntactical Inhibition.

I Was A Man Of The Earth, Precisely As I Had Dreamed I Would Be.

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.

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All Day Long Wearing A Hat That Wasn't On My Head

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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.

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The Truth Of The Matter Is, You Die, All You Do Is Die, And Yet You Live, Yes You Live, And That's No Harvard Lie.

It's Only Through Form That We Can Realize Emptiness

I'd Better Be A Poet Or Lay Down Dead.

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But I Remember Seeing A Mess Of Leaves Suddenly Go Skittering In The Wind And Into The Creek, Then Floating Rapidly Down The Creek Towards The Sea, Making Me Feel A Nameless Horror Even Then Of 'oh My God, We're All Being Swept Away To Sea No Matter What We Know Or Say Or Do

The Beat Generation (coined In Playboy)

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.

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

The Silence Was An Intense Roar.

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.

Write What You Want Bottomless From Bottom Of The Mind.

You Can't Fight City Hall. It Keeps Changing Its Name.

They Build Their Own Hells.

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

Parade My Trouble In Front Of You Guys? Make You Realize That My Heart Is Broken . . . That As Long As I Live I'll Have Chains Dragging Me Down To The Oceans Of Sad Tears That My Feet Are Wet In Already.

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

It Is Possible For The Human Spirit To Win After All.

The Tree Looks Like A Dog, Barking At Heaven.

Because The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones.

I Hope It Is True That A Man Can Die And Yet Not Only Live In Others But Give Them Life, And Not Only Life, But That Great Consciousness Of Life.

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)

No Man Should Go Through Life Without Once Experiencing Healthy, Even Bored Solitude In The Wilderness, Finding Himself Depending Solely On Himself And Thereby Learning His True And Hidden Strength

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."

I Can't Think Of Anybody...who Knows The Sum And Substance Of What I Know And Feel And Cry About In My Secret Self All The Time When I Don't Feel Strong, The Sorrows Of Time And Personality, And Can Therefore On All Levels Make It All The Way With Me

All Of Life Is A Foreign Country.

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.

And I Will Die, And You Will Die, And We All Will Die, And Even The Stars Will Fade Out One After Another In Time.

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.

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

So I Rushed Past The Pretty Girls, And The Prettiest Girls In The World Live In Des Moines.

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.

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.

Don't Drink To Get Drunk. Drink To Enjoy Life.

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.

The World You See Is Just A Movie In Your Mind. Rocks Dont See It. Bless And Sit Down. Forgive And Forget. Practice Kindness All Day To Everybody And You Will Realize You’re Already In Heaven Now. That’s The Story. That’s The Message. Nobody Understands It, Nobody Listens, They’re All Running Around Like Chickens With Heads Cut Off. I Will Try To Teach It But It Will Be In Vain, S’why I’ll End Up In A Shack Praying And Being Cool And Singing By My Woodstove Making Pancakes.

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

Write In Recollection And Amazement For Yourself.

Great Things Are Not Accomplished By Those Who Yield To Trends And Fads And Popular Opinion.

My Life Is A Vast Inconsequential Epic.

Inconsequential

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.

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

They Spent All Week Saving Pennies And Went Out Saturdays To Spend Fifty Bucks In Three Hours.

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

Put Down The Pen Someone Else Gave You. No One Ever Drafted A Life Worth Living On Borrowed Ink.

Life Worth Living

What's Your Road, Man? - Holyboy Road, Madman Road, Rainbow Road, Guppy Road, Any Road. It's An Anywhere Road For Anybody Anyhow. Where Body How?

To Think That So Much Comes To So Little, To Think That Life Is Really Short.

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

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?

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.

...most Of The Time We Were Alone And Mixing Up Our Souls Ever More And Ever More Till It Would Be Terribly Hard To Say Good-by.

I Mean, Why On Earth (outside Sickness And Hangovers) Aren't People Continually Drunk? I Want Ecstasy Of The Mind All The Time.

Prison Is Where You Promise Yourself The Right To Live.

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.

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

Mind Is The Maker, For No Reason At All, For All This Creation, Created To Fall.

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!

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

Everything Is Perfect On The Street Again, The World Is Permeated With Roses Of Happiness All The Time, But None Of Us Know It. The Happiness Consists In Realizing That It Is All A Great Strange Dream.

No Time For Poetry But Exactly What Is.

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.

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

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.

We Wandered In A Frenzy And A Dream (301).

Eager For Bread And Love.

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.

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.

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.

I Felt Free And Therefore I Was Free.

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.

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.

Desolation, Desolation, I Owe So Much To Desolation.

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

It Seemed Like A Matter Of Minutes When We Began Rolling In The Foothills Before Oakland And Suddenly Reached A Height And Saw Stretched Out Ahead Of Us The Fabulous White City Of San Francisco On Her Eleven Mystic Hills With The Blue Pacific And Its Advancing Wall Of Potato-patch Fog Beyond, And Smoke And Goldenness In The Late Afternoon Of Time.

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