Jack Kerouac Quotes page 2

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

“The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”

Source: On the Road

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

“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…”

“I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.”

Big Sur (1962)

“I promise I shall never give up, and that I'll die yelling and laughing, and that until then I'll rush around this world I insist is holy and pull at everyone's lapel and make them confess to me and to all.”

Source: On the Road

“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.”

“The fact that everybody in the world dreams every night ties all mankind together.”

Journal entry (November 1951) as published in the Kerouac ROMnibus http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ctitext2/resguide/resources/j100.html

“They build their own Hells.”

Book of Dreams (1961) Foreword
As misquoted in Night and Day (1989) by Jack Maguire, p. 221; Maguire does not cite his source, so this widely quoted variant appears to be an erroneous paraphrase of this published statement. It is not a direct quote from some other statement by Kerouac.
Variant: All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

“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.”

“My eyes were glued on life
and they were full of tears.”

Source: On the Road

Jack Kerouac book Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

Source: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

“Better to sleep in an uncomfortable bed free, than sleep in a comfortable bed unfree.”

“But, outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb and capable of doing horrible things.”

Source: On the Road

“It'll take you eternities to get rid of me,' she adds sadly, which makes me jealous, I want her to say I'll never get rid of her - I wanta be chased till eternity till I catch her.”

“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.”

Source: Big Sur

“For the first time in my life the weather was not something that touched me, that caressed me, froze or sweated me, but became me.”

Source: On the Road

“Forgive everyone for your own sins and be sure to tell them you love them which you do.”

Source: On the Road

“There are worse things than being mad.”

“The beauty of things must be that they end.”

This appears not to be a Kerouac quote. It has not been found in any of Kerouac's published work.
Misattributed

Jack Kerouac book Tristessa

Source: Tristessa

“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.”

“Let nature do the freezing and frightening and isolating in this world. let men work and love and fight it off.”

Source: On the Road

“And when the fog's over and the stars and the moon come out at night it'll be a beautiful sight.”

Source: Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954

“My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love.”

Source: Big Sur

“The details are the life of it, I insist, say everything on your mind, don’t hold back, don’t analyze or anything as you go along, say it out.”

Satori in Paris (1966)
Source: Satori in Paris & Pic

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans

“All he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road.”

“… we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.”

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

“Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.”

Source: On the Road

Jack Kerouac book The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

Source: The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

“When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.”

Jack Kerouac book The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

Source: The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

“Pretty girls make graves.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you.”

“Bee, why are you staring at me? I am not a flower??”

Variant: I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another til I drop.
Source: On the Road

“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.”

“You'd be surprised how little I knew even up to yesterday”

Source: On the Road

“Love is all.”

“What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.”

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

Part Three, Ch. 11
Source: On the Road (1957)
Context: In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchements on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.

“all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was doing all over the country.”

Source: On the Road

“The road must eventually lead to the whole world.”

Source: On the Road

“The empty blue sky of space says 'All this comes back to me, then goes again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don't care, it still belongs to me”

Source: On the Road