“Jack Kerouac was cool because he had no idea he was.”

“Do you know what I think of history? … For a while I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote. But Jack loved history so… No one'll ever know everything about Jack. But … history made Jack what he was … this lonely, little sick boy … scarlet fever … this little boy sick so much of the time, reading in bed, reading history … reading the Knights of the Round Table … and he just liked that last song.
Then I thought, for Jack history was full of heroes. And if it made him this way, if it made him see the heroes, maybe other little boys will see. Men are such a combination of good and bad … He was such a simple man. But he was so complex, too. Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view, but then he had that other side, the pragmatic side… his friends were all his old friends; he loved his Irish Mafia.”

“Jack," said Charles, "he's making up words again."

"Yes," Jack replied, "but he's getting better at it, don't you think?”

“He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.”

“Jack was embarrassed — never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore.”

“It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.'
Because he got hurt?'
No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.”

“Uninfluenced by others, he never knew he influenced them; he had no idea they liked him.”

“Jack and Jill ran up the hill, both for a little fun. Jack's plan was deception while Jill sought affection. And Jack wouldn't quit till he won.”

“It was a very bad idea. It was a terrible idea. It was the worst idea he had ever heard. It was irresistible.”

“He is not bound so tightly by tradition that he will refuse a good idea simply for it being new, and not so wild that he would take a bad idea simply because it is new.”