..a wink of the eye and winking stars

I can get over almost everything, except for the fact I wasn't born in 1922.

Amongst other things, I could have witnessed: The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Martin Luther King Jr , Neil Armstrong, The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Spirit of St Louis, The Jazz Singer, flapper dresses, poodle skirts, Gandhi's 240 mile journey, Mae West, Jackie Robinson, Jackson Pollock, I Love Lucy Live, the Double Helix, The King, Ms. Parks, burning bras, Studio 54, the peace movement....so forth, so on.

Most importantly, I would have met Jack Kerouac...

The road is life. [On the Road]

Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me. [On the Road]

“Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.” [The Dharma Bums]

Pretty girls make graves. [The Dharma Bums]

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 be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that 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!' [On the Road]

As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain
highest perfect knowing. [Book of Blues]

But why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?

What is the 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, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Maybe that's what life is...a wink of the eye and winking stars.

My witness is the empty sky.

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.

Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become
panic-stricken.

Mankind is like dogs, not gods--as long as you dont get mad they'll bite you--but stay mad and you'll never be bitten. Dogs dont respect humility & sorrow.

You never die enough to cry.

All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.

I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. 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. Ecstasy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass.

New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets.

We should be wondering tonight, "Is there a world?" But I could go and talk on 5, 10, 20 minutes about is there a world, because there is really no world, cause sometimes I'm walkin’ on the ground and I see right through the ground. And there is no world. And you'll find out.

As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love. [Satori in Paris]

All of life is a foreign country. [letter, June 24, 1949]

and last...but not least..

_______________________________________
I like too many things and get all hung-up and confused running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

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