Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), often known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist of French Canadian ancestry, who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Hope, our collection of Jack Kerouac Quotes will inspire you to think freely.
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
– Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac Quotes
1. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” – Jack Kerouac
2. “Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.” – Jack Kerouac
3. “The best teacher is experience and not through someone’s distorted point of view.” – Jack Kerouac
4. “Be in love with your life, every detail of it.” – Jack Kerouac
5. “If you own a rug you own too much.” – Jack Kerouac
6. “All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.” – Jack Kerouac
7. “Better to sleep in an uncomfortable bed free, than sleep in a comfortable bed unfree.” – Jack Kerouac
8. “Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” – Jack Kerouac
9. “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.” – Jack Kerouac
10. “I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t make any difference.” – Jack Kerouac
11. “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
12. “You can’t teach the old maestro a new tune.” – Jack Kerouac
13. “Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.” – Jack Kerouac
14. “It always makes me proud to love the world somehow- hate’s so easy compared.” – Jack Kerouac
15. “The only truth is music.” – Jack Kerouac
16. “Life must be rich and full of loving–it’s no good otherwise, no good at all, for anyone.” – Jack Kerouac
17. “One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.” – Jack Kerouac
18. “Mankind is like dogs, not gods – as long as you don’t get mad they’ll bite you – but stay mad and you’ll never be bitten. Dogs don’t respect humility and sorrow.” – Jack Kerouac
19. “If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.” – Jack Kerouac
20. “Avoid the world, it’s just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.” – Jack Kerouac
21. “Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.” – Jack Kerouac
22. “Pain or love or danger makes you real again….” – Jack Kerouac
23. “A sociable smile is nothing but a mouth full of teeth.” – Jack Kerouac
24. “The empty blue sky of space says ‘All this comes back to me, then goes again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don’t care, it still belongs to me” – Jack Kerouac
25. “Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.” – Jack Kerouac
26. “Rest and be kind, you don’t have to prove anything.” – Jack Kerouac
27. “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” – Jack Kerouac
28. “Things are so hard to figure out when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly world.” – Jack Kerouac
29. “Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.” – Jack Kerouac
30. “Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.” – Jack Kerouac
31. “You aren’t ever going to be anything in this world unless you do what you want to do, when you want to do it–don’t plan anything, just go out and do it.” – Jack Kerouac
32. “The earth will always be the same – only cities and history will change, even nations will change, governments and governors will go, the things made by men’s hands will go, buildings will always crumble – only the earth will remain the same.” – Jack Kerouac
33. “Dreams were so irrational, so gray with a nameless terror — and yet, too, so haunting and beautiful.” – Jack Kerouac
34. “Put down the pen someone else gave you. No one ever drafted a life worth living on borrowed ink.” – Jack Kerouac
35. “I feel guilty for being a member of the human race.” – Jack Kerouac
36. “I’m going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.” – Jack Kerouac
37. “Maybe that’s what life is…a wink of the eye and winking stars.” – Jack Kerouac
38. “Something that you feel will find its own form.” – Jack Kerouac
39. “A man cannot impart the true feeling of things to others unless he himself has experienced what he is trying to tell of.” – Jack Kerouac
40. “Something good will come of all things yet.” – Jack Kerouac
