"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry."
— Jack Kerouac

"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... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but 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 ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."
— Jack Kerouac

"The only truth is music"
— Jack Kerouac

"The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view"
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"Houses are full of things that gather dust"
— Jack Kerouac

"Life must be rich and full of loving--it's no good otherwise, no good at all, for anyone."
— Jack Kerouac (Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956)

"And the story of love is a long sad tale ending in graves."
— Jack Kerouac

"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference."
— Jack Kerouac

"We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time."
— Jack Kerouac

"Something good will come of all things yet"
— Jack Kerouac

"What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?"
— Jack Kerouac

"Will you love me in December as you do in May?"
— Jack Kerouac (The Town and the City)

"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 (Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings)

"It all ends in tears anyway."
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"Finding Nirvana is like locating silence."
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?"
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life."
— Jack Kerouac

"But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?"
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"Bee, why are you staring at me? I am not a flower??"
— Jack Kerouac

"...and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?"
— Jack Kerouac

"The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is."
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"'Aw I don't wanta go to no such thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.'...
'But you'll miss all that, just for some old wine.'
'There's wisdom in wine, goddam it!' I yelled. 'Have a shot!'"
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?"
— Jack Kerouac

"forgive everyone for your own sins and be sure to tell them you love them which you do"
— Jack Kerouac

"all day long
wearing a hat
that wasn't on my head"
— Jack Kerouac

"My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it's bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road: The Original Scroll)

"and nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old"
— Jack Kerouac

"In those days he really didn't know what he was talking about; that is to say, he was a young jailkid all hung-up on the wonderful possibilities of becoming a real intellectual, and he liked to talk in the tone and using the words, but in a jumbled way, that he had heard from 'real intellectuals.'"
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"Go moan for man. It's the pathos of people that gets us down, all the lovers in this dream. "
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"And just for a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, wiht a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. - Sal Paradise"
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road: The Original Scroll)

"Books, shmooks, this sickness has got me wishing if I can ever get out of this I'll gladly become a millworker and shut my big mouth."
— Jack Kerouac

"Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life."
— Jack Kerouac

"You have absolutely no regard but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what's hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you're silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road: The Original Scroll)

"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down."
— Jack Kerouac

"Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars. "
— Jack Kerouac (Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956)

"America is a lonely crock of shit..."
— Jack Kerouac (Visions of Cody)

"Though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are still pretty glorious. "
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously."
— Tom Robbins

"Just because you're naked doesn't mean you're sexy. Just because you're cynical doesn't mean you're cool."
— Tom Robbins

"A sense of humor...is superior to any religion so far devised."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"When two people meet and fall in love, there's a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it's usually too late, we've used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It's hard work, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay."
— Tom Robbins

"If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid - but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself."
— Tom Robbins

"When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter."
— Tom Robbins

"There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum."
— Tom Robbins

"There is no such thing as a weird human being, It's just that some people require more understanding than others."
— Tom Robbins

"So you think that you're a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you've any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free."
— Tom Robbins