John Clellon Holmes... and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent existentialism and I said 'You know John, this is really a beat generation'; and he leapt up and said, 'That's it, that's right!'

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

What difference does it make after all?--anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth? All in the mind.

You can't teach the old maestro a new tune.

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

...most of the time we were alone and mixing up our souls ever more and ever more till it would be terribly hard to say good-by.

I have been writing my heart out all my life, but only getting a living out of it now.... ... it's not a question of the merit of art, but a question of spontaneity and sincerity and joy I say. I would like everybody in the world to tell his full life confession and tell it his own way and then we'd have something to read in our old age.