The Dharma Bums: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Jack Kerouac

pray in solitude “for all living creatures…it was the only decent activity left in the world.”

Children live in other people’s worlds because they have to; to do so voluntarily as an adult can be the mark of a special and courageous kind of artist.

“Practice charity without holding in mind any conceptions about charity, for charity after all is just a word.”

real haiku’s gotta be as simple as porridge and yet make you see the real thing, like the greatest haiku of them all probably is the one that goes ‘The sparrow hops along the veranda, with wet feet.’ By Shiki.

The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.

“The secret of this kind of climbing,” said Japhy, “is like Zen. Don’t think. Just dance along. It’s the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you never hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like Zen.” Which it was.

the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.

have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other.”