I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!

I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'

But it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it.

I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

I am ashamed of my century for being so entertaining but I have to smile.

Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara. O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac