“Happy. Just
in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing,
swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running – that’s the way to live.” (Pg 7)
“’It’s
mean,’ I complained. ‘All those Zen Masters throwing young kids in the mud
because they can’t answer their silly word questions.’”
“That’s because
they want them to realize mud is better than words, boy.” (Pg 13)
“Pretty
girls make graves.” (Pg 29)
“I distrust
any kind of Buddhism or any kinda philosophy or social system that puts down
sex.” (Pg 30)
“Neutral is
what Buddhism is!” (Pg 46)
“This is the
way I like it, when you get going there’s just no need to talk, as if we were
animals and just communicated by silent telepathy.” (Pg 62)
“Yeah man,
you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of
thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like
praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop
all our frettin and foolin’.” (Pg 67)
“ ’twere
good enough to have been born just to die, as we all are.” (Pg 71)
“It’s a
privilege to practice giving presents to others.” (Pg 76)
“Mind is the
Maker, for no reason at all, for all this creation, created to fall.” (Pg 99)
“I intended
to pray, too, as my only activity, pray for all living creatures; I saw it was
the only decent activity left in the world.” (Pg 105)
“See the
whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to
subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have
to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want
anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain
hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later
in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce,
consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution
thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks,
going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making
young girls happy and old girls happier, and all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go
about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also
by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of
eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.” (Pg 97-98)
“The Four
Inevitabilities: 1. Musty Books. 2. Uninteresting nature. 3. Dull existence. 4.
Blank nirvana.” (Pg 136)
“Believe
that the world is an ethereal flower.” (Pg 137)
“Everybody
knows everything.” (Pg 139)
“Obtaining
nirvana is like locating silence.” (Pg 147)
“Philosophy’s
dreadful murderer, B u d d h a.” (Pg 176)
“Do you
think God made the world to amuse himself because he was bored? Because if so
he would have to be mean.” (Pg 201)
“I think
death is our reward.” When we die we go straight to nirvana Heaven and that’s
that.” (Pg 202)
“Maitreya
means ‘love’ in Sanscrit.” (Pg 202)
“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?” (Pg 239)
“’God, I
love you’ and looked up to the sky and really meant it. ‘I have fallen in love
with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other.’” (Pg 244)
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
“The only
people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to
talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the onest that never yawn or say
a commonplace thing… but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night.”
(Pg 113)
“There’s
nowhere to go but everywhere.” (Pg 130)
“I hope you
get where you’re going and be happy when you do.” (Pg 134)
“He wasn’t
drunk on liquor, just drunk on what he liked – thousands of people milling, and
he the director of it.” (Pg 156-157)
“Boys and
girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that
they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting
talk – real straight talk about soulds, for life is holy and every moment is
precious.” (Pg 159)
“This is the
story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do.”
(Pg 170)
“I suddenly
began to realize that everybody in America is a natural born thief.” (Pg 174)
“Nothing
behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” (Pg 183)
“I loved the
way she said L.A.; I love the way everybody says L.A. on the Coast, it’s their
one and only golden town when all is said and done.” (Pg 184)
“There was
no end to the American sadness and the American madness.” (Pg 206)
“WE ALL KNOW
TIME!” (Pg 216)
“’I want to
marry a girl’ I told them ‘so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old.
This can’t go on all the time… all this franticness and jumping around. We’ve
got to go someplace, find something.’” (Pg 218)
“Peace will
come suddenly, we won’t understand when it does.” (Pg 224)
“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 – tho we hate
to admit it – in death. But who wants to die?” (Pg 225)
“He was a
teacher, and had every right to teach because he learned all the time; and the
things he learned were the facts of life, not out of necessity but because he
wanted to.” (Pg 244)
“What is
that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain
till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us in,
and it’s goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the
skies.” (Pg 255)
“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.” (Pg 278)
“The truth
of the matter is, you die, all you do is die, and yet you live, yes you live,
and that’s no Harvard lie.” (Pg 279)
“I believed
in a good home, in sane and sound living, in good food, good times, work, faith
and hope. I have always believed in these things. It was with some amazement
that I realized I was one of the few people in the world who really believed in
these things without going to around making a dull middleclass philosophy out
of it.” (Pg 280)
“Bitterness,
recriminations, advice, morality, sadness, it was all behind him and ahead of
him was the ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being.” (Pg 294)
“I was
through the world without a chance to see it.” (Pg 304)
“Things are
so hard to figure when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly
world.” (Pg 314)
“Goddamit
everybody in the world wants an explanation for your acts and for your very
being.” (Pg 317)
“Women can
forget what men can’t.” (Pg 345)
“Anonymity
in the world of men is better than fame in heaven.” (Pg 347)
“The whole
world opened up before me because I had no dreams.” (Pg 358)
“Such lovely
eyes surely must belie the lovelies of souls.” (Pg 385)
“Nobody,
just nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of
growing old.” (Pg 408)
Big Sur - Jack Kerouac
“We all
agree it’s too big to keep up with, that were surrounded by life, that we’ll
never understand it, so we center it all in by swigging Scotch from the
bottle.” (Pg 65)
“Wisdom is
just another way to make people sick.” (Pg 113)
“It’s just
amazing how inside our own souls we can lift out so much strength I think it
would be enough strength to move mountains at that, to lift our boots up again
and go clomping along happy out of nothing but the good source power in our
bones.” (Pg 118)
“You don’t
have to torture your consciousness with endless thinking.” (Pg 119)
“Life is so
holy for him there’s no need to do anything but live it.” (Pg 141)
“It always
makes me proud to love the world somehow – Hate’s so easy compared.” (Pg 141)
“Anybody
who’s never done this is crazy – because a new love affair always gives hope,
the irrational mortal loneliness is always crowned.” (Pg 147)
“I realize
everybody is just living their lives quietly but it’s only me that’s insane.”
(Pg 156)
“I feel
guilty for being a member of the human race.” (Pg 166)
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