“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 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 trave...”

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”

“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?”

“I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.”

“Man, wow, there's so many things to do, so many things to write! How to even begin to get it all down and without modified restraints and all hung-up on like literary inhibitions and grammatical fe...”

“Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac”

“I was always aware that Jack loved women not only for their bodies but for the stories that came into being as they interacted with him--they were part of his "road," the infinite range of experien...”

“...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.”

“There is something relentless about the serenity of nature which has a crushing effect on the human mind. The lavish splendour of her phases, which completely ignores human strife, fills the race o...”

“Almost every day I can feel myself suffering mainly in the head, I can explain the pain to myself but knowing it comes from an inflammation of my imagination doesn't prevent it being reality itself...”

“I guess in this culture of ever-shortening attention spans, it's good if a song can lift us out of the madness, even if only for a few minutes.”

“The open road. Seemingly my only friend for years upon end since leaving war. The road embraced me, let me breathe, and more importantly, did not judge me.”