Jack Kerouac citations

Jean-Louis Kérouac ou Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac dit Jack Kerouac [ ʒɑk keʁwak] , né le 12 mars 1922 à Lowell dans le Massachusetts et mort le 21 octobre 1969 à St. Petersburg en Floride, est un écrivain et poète américain.

Considéré comme l'un des auteurs américains les plus importants du XXe siècle, il est même pour la communauté beatnik le « King of the Beats ». Son style rythmé et immédiat, auquel il donne le nom de « prose spontanée », a inspiré de nombreux artistes et écrivains et en premier lieu les chanteurs américains Tom Waits et Bob Dylan. Les œuvres les plus connues de Kerouac, Sur la route , Les Clochards célestes, Big Sur ou Le Vagabond solitaire, narrent de manière romancée ses voyages à travers les États-Unis. Le genre cinématographique du road movie est directement influencé par ses techniques et par son mode de narration.

Jack Kerouac a passé la majeure partie de sa vie partagé entre les grands espaces américains et l'appartement de sa mère. Ce paradoxe est à l'image de son mode de vie : confronté aux changements rapides de son époque, il a éprouvé de profondes difficultés à trouver sa place dans le monde, ce qui l'a amené à rejeter les valeurs traditionnelles des années 1945-1950, donnant ainsi naissance au mouvement beat. Ses écrits reflètent cette volonté de se libérer des conventions sociales étouffantes de son époque et de donner un sens à son existence. Un sens qu'il a cherché dans des drogues comme la marijuana et la benzédrine, dans l'alcool également, dans la religion et la spiritualité — notamment le bouddhisme — et dans une frénésie de voyages.

« Jazz poet », comme il se définit lui-même, Kerouac vante les bienfaits de l'amour, proclame l'inutilité du conflit armé, quel qu'il soit, et considère que « seuls les gens amers dénigrent la vie ». Jack Kerouac et ses écrits sont vus comme précurseurs du mode de vie de la jeunesse des années 1960, celle de la Beat Generation, « qui a ébranlé la société américaine dans ses certitudes. Elle a directement inspiré aussi bien les mouvements de mai 1968 que l’opposition à la guerre du Viêt Nam, ou les hippies de Berkeley et Woodstock. Pourtant la Beat Generation a aussi contribué à enrichir le mythe américain. Sur la route, le roman le plus connu de Kerouac, est une ode aux grands espaces, à l’épopée vers l’ouest, à la découverte de mondes nouveaux ». Wikipedia  

✵ 12. mars 1922 – 21. octobre 1969
Jack Kerouac photo

Œuvres

Sur la route
Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac: 277   citations 1   J'aime

Jack Kerouac citations célèbres

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Jack Kerouac Citations

Jack Kerouac: Citations en anglais

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

Sometimes credited to Jack Kerouac, from his book The Dharma Bums. It is not a quote by Kerouac. It first appeared as a very brief description of The Dharma Bums in Esquire's list of "The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read" in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g96/80-books/?slide=71. It was later copied by Kilburn Hall in his list of 30 "Books and Authors Every Man Should Read" which he first posted online in 2012: https://kilburnhall.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-books-and-authors-every-man-should-read/
Misattributed

“It all ends in tears anyway.”

Jack Kerouac livre The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

“So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry”

Jack Kerouac livre Desolation Angels

Variante: Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.
Source: Desolation Angels

“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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Jack Kerouac livre Sur la route

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Contexte: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because 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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

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

Not a Kerouac quote, but by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), the German scientist, satirist, and Anglophile: http://www.quotes.net/quote/58450
Misattributed

“Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.”

"Belief & Technique For Modern Prose: List of Essentials" in a letter to Arabelle Porter (28 May 1955); published in Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1940-1956 (1995). Sometimes misquoted as "Be in love with your life every minute of it."
Variante: Be in love with your life every detail of it

“Soon I'll find the right words, they'll be very simple.”

Jack Kerouac livre The Dharma Bums

Some of the Dharma (1997)
Source: Sometimes paraphrased as "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple" or "Someday I will find the right words … ", and sometimes misattributed to The Dharma Bums rather than to Some of the Dharma.

“The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view.”

Jack Kerouac livre Sur la route

Misattributed
Source: Often attributed to Kerouac's On the Road, the quote cannot be found in that book, nor in any of Kerouac's other published works.

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

This is not a quote by Kerouac. It's a quote by CBS broadcaster Charles Kuralt who used to present a TV news segment called 'On the Road' (which is probably how the confusion arose). This particular statement by Kuralt was made in May 1996 to students of Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19960527&id=yf8yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yQcGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3106,5606314
Misattributed

“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”

Jack Kerouac livre Sur la route

Not a Kerouac quote, but by Jon Krakauer, from his nonfiction book Into the Wild (1996).
Misattributed
Source: On the Road

“My witness is the empty sky.”

Some of the Dharma (1997)

“He saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly, without labor, that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings, revisings, moldings, addings, removings, graftings, tearings, correctings, smoothings, rebuildings, reconsiderings, nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings, hoistings, connectings — all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions of human endeavor.”

Jack Kerouac livre The Town and the City

The Town and the City (1950)
Contexte: He saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly, without labor, that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings, revisings, moldings, addings, removings, graftings, tearings, correctings, smoothings, rebuildings, reconsiderings, nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings, hoistings, connectings — all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions of human endeavor. They went on forever and were forever incomplete, far from perfect, refined, or smooth, full of terrible memories of failure and fears of failure, yet, in the way of things, somehow noble, complete, and shining in the end. This he could sense even from the old house they lived in, with its solidly built walls and floors that held together like rock: some man, possibly an angry pessimistic man, had built the house long ago, but the house stood, and his anger and pessimism and irritable labourious sweats were forgotten; the house stood, and other men lived in it and were sheltered well in it.

“I'm writing this book because we're all going to die”

Jack Kerouac livre Visions of Cody

In the loneliness of my life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother far away, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our death, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid...
Visions of Cody (1960)

“Pain or love or danger makes you real again….”

Jack Kerouac livre The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

“The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.”

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

Source: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them; disagree with them; glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

Used in the Apple "Think Different" marketing campaign and sometimes attributed to Kerouac on the internet, perhaps because it evokes his famous quote from On the Road: "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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"" The original script was actuality written by Rob Siltanen with participation of Lee Clow. In "The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign" in Forbes (14 December 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-behind-apples-think-different-campaign/ Rob Siltanen states: "I wrote everything..." "I shared my scripts with Lee, and he thought they were good. He made a couple tweaks..."
Misattributed

“Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world”

Letter to Edith Parker Kerouac (28 January 1957); published in Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969 (1999)

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