Extended excerpt [Punctuation is original to source text. Letter begins on page 128.]:

“Consider this for irrationality which reached a point of mystery: — One night I went to an amusement park with a widow and her 14-year-old-boy. This mad widow likes me, for some reason. Coming back from the park with the boy (she had left), hitch-hiking in the black Colorado night, a man gave us a ride in his little truck. He had his whole family with him. The boy and I sat in the back with one of the man’s little boys. The little boy was wrapped in a blanket, although it was not cold. Just then a car came out of the dark, with no headlights, and came straight for us; just missed, swerving, and disappearing in the dark, no lights. No sound, nothing! The two boys with me giggled. They thought it was funny. At that moment I looked at them and they were both wrapped in the blanket, as in a shroud, and I yelled: “What the hell is this, a foreign country?” Turns out, all of life is a foreign country. This incident I have just described is one of the great mysteries of my life Nobody can help me to figure it out. I just couldn’t understand what was going on. Can you? The dark car, the soundlessness, the incomprehensible family in the truck, the night, the blanket-shroud…just like I say: America is an Egyptian land.” (p. 129)

Source: Editor’s copy – The Beat Diary (1977) Online Computer Library Center No. 632698790

Extended excerpt [Essay on writing; italicized words original to text]:

“Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night sky can never be seen again. No frog can jump in a pond like Basho’s frog. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by made writers.”

Source note: Images of the original Kerouac Writer’s Digest print edition pages can be viewed online via Zachary Petit, “Are Writers Born or Made? – Jack Kerouac Quotes” (16 March 2012) Writer’s Digest, www.writersdigest.com.  Please see our “Source Link” tab for the specific link to the Writer’s Digest article.

Source [Featured source]: Library – The Portable Jack Kerouac (1995 Penguin Books ed.) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-14-017819-8

Source link [Writer’s Digest, original page images]: “Are Writers Born or Made? – Jack Kerouac Quotes” (16 March 2012) online via Writer’s Digest: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/are-writers-born-or-made-jack-kerouac-quotes

Extended excerpt: “…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 don’t be sorry – Prunes, prune, eat your prunes – And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on innocent cupboard doors it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void – I come back into the house a new man.” (p. 10)

Source link: Desolation Angels (1965|March 2016 Open Road Integrated Media ed.) online via Scribd [subscription service]: https://www.scribd.com/read/297875477/Desolation-Angels-A-Novel#t_search-menu_914420

Note: International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 978-1-5040-3401-2

Extended excerpt [Letter to author Alan Harrington. Itlatics & ellipses original to text]:

“Excuse me for not ever being serious with you. It’s my own way of finding out more about you. You can’t pin a wriggling fish like me. Also – no deviation here – I’ve been thinking of going back to my 1st wife, Edie. In any case, enough about me. And I’m in a strange mood this night so many people I know are sitting in actual jails. If all this sounds like Dostoevsky, realize at least that I intend it so, in my upset-mindedness…for “clear reasons” that are not half as important as the fact that I’m actually doing it. See?

Maybe that’s what life is, a wink of the eye, and winking stars…and maybe also the hi-ball I’m presently drinking: (He-he!) Also the glee of little children.” (p. 188)

Source: Editor’s copy – Kerouac: Selected Letters 1940-1956 (1996 Penguin ed.) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-14-02-3444-6

Extended excerpt [Letter to first wife Edie Kerouac Parker. Lack of apostrophe in ‘dont’ and word ‘awakenerhood’ original to text]:

“Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the one vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.

Rocks dont see it.

Bless and sit down.

Forgive and forget.

Practice kindness all day to everybody

and you will realize you’re already

in heaven now.” (p. 8)

Source: Editor’s copy – Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969 (2000 Penguin ed.) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-14-02-9615-8

Misattribution notes: This Kerouac verse inspired an oft-quoted (and usually misattributed) advertising copy that begins “Here’s to the crazy ones…”. The ‘crazy ones’ quote is an ad company creation and not a part of Kerouac’s On the Road or any of his other works. Please see our separate post on the misattribution for more information.

Extended excerpt:

“They rushed down the street together, digging everything in the early way they had, which later became so much sadder and perceptive and blank. But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”. (p. 8)

Source: Editor’s copy – On the Road (1955|1991 Penguin edition) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-14-01-852166

Misattribution notes:

Journalist Charles Kuralt’s quote has been frequently and incorrectly attributed to ‘Beat Generation’ author Jack Kerouac. The possible misattribution may stem from a shared title used by both men: Charles Kuralt hosted a CBS News show called “On the Road” from 1967 to the mid-1980s, and Kerouac was best known for his 1955 book, On the Road.

Title similarities aside, however – the quote definitely belongs to Kuralt.

Extended excerpt [Commencement address]:

“Think for yourselves. The way of the crowd is not your way. Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

Source link: “Charles Kuralt Commencement Address 1996” (11 May 1996) online via UNCA Ramsey Library Video Production & YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy8Z_nqn_Q0

Misattribution note:

Rob Siltanen, the chairman of advertising firm Siltanen & Partners, wrote a script for an Apple computers ad campaign that evoked the flow and tone of American author Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road.  He was so close, in fact, that Kerouac frequently (and incorrectly) receives credit for text that is totally original to Siltanen and his team.

See also: The Kerouac quote which begins “The only people for me are the mad ones…” on our Jack Kerouac author page.

Extended excerpt [Full text of Apple’s ‘Think Different’ advertising campaign video.]:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them; disagree with them; glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

Source note: For more background on the ‘Think Different’ video and copy, see Rob Siltanen’s “The Real Story Behind Apple’s ‘Think Different’ Campaign (14 December 2011) Forbe’s magazine; online via www.forbes.com. A full link to this page can be found under our “Source Link” tab.

Source link [Featured source – video advertisement]: ‘Apple – Think Different – Full Version’ (1997) online via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFEarBzelBs

Source link [Author background]: ‘The Real Story Behind Apple’s ‘Think Different’ Campaign (14 December 2011) online via Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-behind-apples-think-different-campaign/#3f75b60062ab

Misattribution notes:

Ginsberg’s quote has been misattributed to his friend and fellow ‘beat generation’ author Jack Kerouac.  

Extended excerpt [Part II of diary entry for 30 July 1947, 1:45AM]:

“Neal simply cannot accept my emotions of masochism and dependence, they are out of place. Why? I do not know anymore really what I thought then. Push. Analyze. Hold it. My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” (p. 199)

Source: Editor’s copy – The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice (2006) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 987-0-306-81562-1

Misattribution & misquote notes:

Lichtenberg’s quote has been incorrectly attributed to American author Jack Kerouac, often also with the word ‘if’ instead of ‘where’:

Original Lichtenberg quote: “Where moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.”

Misquote/paraphrase: “If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.”

Extended excerpt [Single line, from notebook of aphorisms]:

“Where moderation is a fault indifference is a crime.” (p. 32)

Source note: In the preface to The Reflections of Lichtenberg, translator & editor Norman Alliston noted that his translation was based on the 1844 edition released by Lichtenberg’s sons. (p. 16)

German text: “Wo Mässigung ein Fehler ist, da ist Gleichgültigkeit ein Verbrechen.” (p. 166)

[German source: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Vermischt Schriften (1853) Vol. I, ed. Christoph W. Lichtenberg, Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen, p. 166; online via New York Public Library & Google Books, books.google.com]

Source link [Featured source]: The Reflections of Lichtenberg (1908) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=M6QxAQAAMAAJ&q=moderation+is#v=snippet&q=moderation%20is&f=false

Source link [German text]: Vermischt Schriften (1853) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=UkomAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA166&dq=Lichtenberg+%2B+Gleichg%C3%BCltigkeit+ein+Verbrechen