Quote

Man lowers his head and lunges into civilization, forgetting the days of his infancy when he sought truth in a snowflake or a stick. Man forgets the wisdom of the child.

Jack Kerouac

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Jack Kerouac
Age: 47 †
Born: 1922
Born: March 13
Died: 1969
Died: October 21
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
East Chelmsford
Massachusetts
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
Kerouac
Jean-Louis Kerouac
Forget
Sought
Truth
Stick
Children
Sticks
Men
Civilization
Lowers
Head
Snowflake
Days
Forgets
Wisdom
Infancy
Child
Forgetting

More quotes by Jack Kerouac

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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.
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When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.
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At night I closed my eyes and saw my bones threading the mud of my grave.
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Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.
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I just won't sleep, I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.
Jack Kerouac
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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.
Jack Kerouac
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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 -
Jack Kerouac
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And when the fog's over and the stars and the moon come out at night it'll be a beautiful sight.
Jack Kerouac
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It ain't whatcha write, it's the way atcha write it.
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What a horror it would have been if the world was real, because if the world was real, it would be immortal.
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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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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.
Jack Kerouac
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I realized either I was crazy or the world was crazy and I picked on the world. And of course I was right.
Jack Kerouac
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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.
Jack Kerouac
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A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest. If you're not haunted by something, as by a dream, a vision, or a memory, which are involuntary, you're not interested or even involved.
Jack Kerouac
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All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.
Jack Kerouac
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What do you want out of life? I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.
Jack Kerouac
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Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.
Jack Kerouac
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He had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars.
Jack Kerouac
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I'm going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.
Jack Kerouac