Quotes by Jack Kerouac

“The tasteof rain-- Why kneel?”

“It was a rainy night. It was the myth of a rainy night.”

“Snap your fingerstop the world - rain falls harder”

“Smith, you don't realize it's a privilege to practice giving presents to others.' The way he did it was charming; there was nothing glittery and Christmasy about it, but almost sad, and sometimes h...”

“...the/ supreme end-result of/ early Gothic phallic forms/ is the skyscraper & the/ oil drill & powered/ compressor & pistons of/ great engines...”

“The earth will always be the same - only cities and history will change, even nations will change, governments and governors will go, the things made by men's hands will go, buildings will always c...”

“I made myself famous by writing 'songs' and lyrics about the beauty of the things I did and ugliness, too.”

“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... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow R...”

“All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”

“Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.”

“Buds in the snowthe deadly fightbetween two birds”

“I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief.”

“In winter night Massachusetts Street is dismal, the ground's frozen cold, the ruts and pock holes have ice, thin snow slides over the jagged black cracks. The river is frozen to stolidity, waits; h...”

“He lived with his mother, father and sister; had a room of his own, with the fourth-floor windows staring on seas of rooftops and the glitter of winter nights when home lights brownly wave beneath ...”

“the road is life”

“At least I had frost on my nose, boots on my feet, and protest in my mouth.”

“I had nothing to offer anybody except for my own confusion”

“In seeking to severely penalize criminals society by putting the criminals away behind safe walls actually provide them with the means of greater strength for future atrocities glorious and otherwise.”