Jack Kerouac - αποφθέγματα

“Life is the same as death
But the soul continues
In the same blinding light.”

 Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues

"The romantics have more on the ball than the others. Those who laugh at the romantics are just jealous bank clerks and unsuccessful writers who become critics. A romantic is a realist who digs in and lives so that he can learn more about everything. Who really knows more about realism than the romantic?"

― Jack Kerouac, The Haunted Life & Other Writings

I suddenly realized that all things just come and go including any feeling of sadness;  that too will go: sad today glad tomorrow: somber today drunk tomorrow: why fret so much?

Everybody in the world has flaws just like me" 

― Jack Kerouac, Scattered Poems

"I want a blaze of light to flame in me forever in a timeless, dear love of everything. And why should I pretend to want anything else?" 

― Jack Kerouac, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954

Hold together, Jack, pass through everything, everything is one dream, one appearance, one flash, one sad eye, one crystal lucid mystery, one word– Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply be–be–be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments, complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting starts of thought, just flow, flow, be you all, be you what it is, it is only what it always is– Hope is a word like a snow-drift –This is the Great Knowing, this is the Awakening, this is Voidness– So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and dont be sorry–"

― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

"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."

― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

"They put spotlights on me standing there in the road in jeans and workclothes, with the big woeful rucksack a-back, and asked: -"Where are you going?" which is precisely what they asked me a year later under Television floodlights in New York, "Where are you going?"-Just as you cant explain to the police, you cant explain to society "Looking for peace."

― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels 

"Sunday morning, I empty of my little tricks to make life livable." 

― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels 

When I hear pious

bullshit about Justice

& Democracy and I know

the hypocrites are lying

in their false teeth

 ― Jack Kerouac, Pomes All Sizes

I want to know where all this meanness of spirit comes from – the world’s crazy!” 

― Jack Kerouac, Orpheus Emerged

Θυμάται όλη του τη ζωή τώρα. Τίποτα δεν μπορεί μέσα στου πόνου τη νύχτα να κάνει, μόνο να πονάει. Και να σκέφτεται. Είναι η παρατεταμένη νύχτα της ζωής. Και της σκέψης. Το πρωί που γεννήθηκε υπήρχε γκρίζα βροχή και υγρές γαλότσες σε μια μουντή ντουλάπα κι ένα καφετί θλιμμένο φως στην κουζίνα και θυμωμένες κηλίδες στα ενοχλημένα πρόσωπα της ζωής, και κατά έναν τρόπο από κάπου έξω, ή μες στο κέντρο, έρχεται ο Συμβουλάτορας σ᾽ αυτόν, και λέει, ῾῾Μην το κάνεις — Μη γεννηθείς᾽᾽ αλλά αυτός γεννιέται, θέλησε να το κάνει και να γεννηθεί και αγνόησε τον Συμβουλάτορα, τον Αρχαίο Συμβουλάτορα 

— Τζακ Κέρουακ, Οράματα του Ζεράρ, μτφρ. Γιώργος-Ίκαρος Μπαμπασάκης, Εκδόσεις Πλέθρον

Leave me alone at night with my books. Don’t complicate the world for me. I want it uncomplicated. And above all, leave me alone with my books at night.”

― Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother

…if tears shall wash away the cruelty of our years, and sow the seeds of pity in our black and broken hearts, remind us that life is brief and lovely, not long and foolish, that it is strange and beautiful, yea as a dream, then so let it be, if it must be tears, if tears alone may serve…” ― Jack Kerouac, Atop An Underwood: Early Stories And Other Writings

The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.”

― Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler

"I am full of shit too. Don’t you see? we’re ALL full of shit, and therefore we can be saved." ― Jack Kerouac, Jack Kerouac And Allen Ginsberg: The Letters