We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time.
Jack KerouacOnce there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety - leaning into it with glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.
Jack KerouacNo 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
Jack KerouacAnd before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent; somewhat far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam. There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded - at least that's what I thought then.
Jack KerouacThe bartenders are the regular band of Jack, and the heavenly drummer who looks up to the sky with blue eyes, with a beard, is wailing beer-caps of bottles and jamming on the cash register and everything is going to the beat - It's the beat generation, its bรฉat, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown.
Jack Kerouac