The Dharma Bums: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Jack Kerouac

This was my first and last “miracle” because I was afraid of getting too interested in this and becoming vain. I was a little scared too, of all the responsibility.

You’re just drinking too much all the time, I don’t see how you’re even going to gain enlightenment and manage to stay out in the mountains, you’ll always be coming down the hill spending your bean money on wine and finally you’ll end up lying in the street in the rain, dead drunk, and then they’ll take you away and you’ll have to be reborn a teetotalin bartender to atone for your karma.” He was really sad about it, and worried about me, but I just went on drinking.

Think what a great world revolution will take place when East meets West finally, and it’ll be guys like us that can start the thing. Think of millions of guys all over the world with rucksacks on their backs tramping around the back country and hitchhiking and bringing the word down to everybody.”