Jack Kerouac seems to have been preoccupied with the question of duality from a very young age. He seemed to feel that there was more than one person inside him. Indeed he would veer from friendly, open and so on to someone who was angry. In a way, there was a swing also between his American self and what he later called his Franco-American older brother. There was a swing between the deeply introverted part of himself and the person he became out in the world, having to act in an extroverted way.

Sacrificing everything for one's craft is something some people can't help. They can't help themselves. They must do it. They're driven to do it.

Nothing ever happened except God.

A lot of artists don't survive, do they? You work very hard and finally you get what you want and it destroys you.

Jack Kerouac did what he most wanted to do. He wrote great prose. He became the writer he wanted to be.

Everyone knew in the 1950s why a girl from a nice family left home. The meaning of her theft of herself from her parents was clear to all - as well as what she'd be up to in that room of her own.

I was always aware that Jack loved women not only for their bodies but for the stories that came into being as they interacted with him-they were part of his “road,” the infinite range of experience that always had to remain open to fuel his work.