Quotes from book
The Subterraneans

The Subterraneans
Jack Kerouac

The Subterraneans is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with Alene Lee , an African-American woman, in Greenwich Village, New York. Kerouac met Alene in the late summer of 1953 when she was typing up the manuscripts of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, in Allen's Lower East Side apartment.

Jack Kerouac photo

“beautiful insane
in the rain”

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans

Jack Kerouac photo

“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.”

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans

Jack Kerouac photo

“Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling at this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do−just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do-.”

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans (1958), Chapter One

Similar authors

Jack Kerouac photo
Jack Kerouac 266
American writer 1922–1969
Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert 158
American writer
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan 190
American writer
Ray Bradbury photo
Ray Bradbury 401
American writer
William Faulkner photo
William Faulkner 214
American writer
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar 29
Argentinian writer
David Foster Wallace photo
David Foster Wallace 185
American fiction writer and essayist
Pearl S. Buck photo
Pearl S. Buck 95
American writer
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski 555
American writer
Joseph Campbell photo
Joseph Campbell 140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer