JACK KEROUAC

My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.

You can't teach the old maestro a new tune.

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

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.

It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

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

My witness is the empty sky.

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

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 of life is a foreign country.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

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.

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

Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.

Accept loss forever.

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.

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

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

As you get older, you get more... genealogical.

I didn't dictate sections of 'Visions of Cody'. I typed up a segment of taped conversation with Neal Cassady, or Cody, talking about his early adventures in L.A. It's four chapters.

The Catholic Church is a weird church. Much mysticism is sown broadspread from its ritual mysteries till it extends into the very lives of its constituents and parishoners.