One can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about.

Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action

We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

It was here in Big Sur that I first learned to say 'amen.'

We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only.

I am a free man―and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone―if He existed!

The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.