Jack Kerouac citations

Page 6

“N'utilisez pas le téléphone. Les gens ne sont jamais prêts à y répondre. Utilisez la poésie.”

“Comme toujours, j’étais surpris de voir combien c’était facile de partir et combien réconfortante en était la sensation. Le monde était soudainement riche de possibilités.”

“Bientôt, je trouverai les bons mots, ils seront très simples.”

“Les grands exploits ne sont pas accomplis par ceux qui succombent aux tendances, à la mode et suivent les opinions populaires.”

“Toute ma vie misérable défilait devant mes yeux fatigués, et j'ai réalisé que quoi que l'on fasse, ce sera toujours une perte de temps, alors autant devenir fou.”

“et je trainais derrière eux comme je l’ai fait toute ma vie derrière les gens qui m’intéressent”

“Nous étions perchés sur le toit de l´Amérique, et ne savions que gueuler - pour atteindre, qui sait? l´autre cóté de la nuit, l´Est, au-delá des plaines, ou un vieillard chenu était peut-ětre en route vers nous, porteur de la Parole, sur le point d´arriver pour nous faire taire.”

“Il pouvait à peine placer un mot tellement ça l'excitait de vivre.”

“La seule chose après laquelle nous languissons durant notre existence, qui nous fait soupirer et gémir et souffrir toutes sortes de doucereuses nausées, c'est le souvenir de quelque félicité perdue que l'on a sans doute éprouvée dans le sein maternel et qui ne saurait se reproduire (mais nous nous refusons à l'admettre) que dans la mort. Mais qui souhaite mourir?”

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

“I never saw such crazy musicians. Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent; they didn't give a damn.”

“Write in recollection and amazement for yourself”

“Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain't this and that at all?”

“Mind is the Maker, for no reason at all, for all this creation, created to fall.”

“Down in Denver, all I did was die.”

“all day long
wearing a hat
that wasn't on my head”

“Rocks are space, and space is illusion.”

“And I will die, and you will die, and we all will die, and even the stars will fade out one after another in time.”

“The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world.”

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all.”

“The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”

“She spoke of evenings in the country making popcorn on the porch. Once this would have gladdened my heart but because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.”

“We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends.”

“… most of the time we were alone and mixing up our souls ever more and ever more till it would be terribly hard to say good-by.”

“Go moan for man. It's the pathos of people that gets us down, all the lovers in this dream.”

“It's okay, girl, we'll make it till the sun goes down forever. And until then what you got to lose but the losing? We're fallen angels who didn't believe that nothing means nothing.”

“All of life is a foreign country.”

“I'd rather be thin than famous
but I'm fat
paste that in your broadway show”

“I felt free and therefore I was free.”

“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 fears…”

“She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing.”

“Though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are still pretty glorious.”

“Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.”

“I have all the time in the world from life to life to do what is to do, to do what is done, to do the timeless doing.”

“It's only through form that we can realize emptiness”

“Keep it kickwriting at all costs too, that is, write only what kicks you and keeps you overtime awake from sheer mad joy.”

“… do you think God made the world to amuse himself because he was bored? Because if so he would have to be mean.”

“Bein Crazy
is the least of my worries.”