20 of Jack Kerouac’s Most Beautiful Quotes

Jack Kerouac

March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969

Jack_Kerouac_Naval_Reserve_Enlistment,_1943

Place of birth: Lowell, Massachusetts, United States
Most famous book: On the Road, 1957
Interesting facts:

Kerouac was good friends with Allen Ginsberg, a poet, and William S. Burroughs, a novelist
Him and his friends were part of the Beat generation that made Jack Kerouac famous
“Jack went to bed obscure and woke up famous,” said his then girlfriend Joyce Johnson after his instant fame from the book On the Road
Jack Kerouac’s career included audio LPs, letters, journals, non-fiction, poetry, and fiction novels

35015dee52dff22975e52b8e42281c63

Jack Kerouac’s 20 most beautiful quotes:

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

2. “Happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.”

3. “Believe in the holy contour of life”

4. “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.”

5. “Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.”

jack

6. “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

7. “Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”

8. “All of life is a foreign country.”

9. “I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”

10. “All of life is a foreign country.”

11. “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.”

12. “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.”

13. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”

14. “Mankind is like dogs, not gods – as long as you don’t get mad they’ll bite you – but stay mad and you’ll never be bitten. Dogs don’t respect humility and sorrow.”

15. “My witness is the empty sky.”

16. “Everything belongs to me because I am poor.”

17. “It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.”

18. “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

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

20. “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”