A functioning police state needs no police.

[Political movements] both favor alcohol and are against pot.

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

[Jack] Kerouac was writing fiction. What he did when he wrote about me...he made me out with Russian Countesses and Swiss accounts and other things I didn't have or didn't happen and so on.

I see no reason why the artistic world can't absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction. Why can't we have advertisements with beautiful words and beautiful images?

I have no message to give the politicians of the world. They're all completely addicted to promiscuous verbalization and I'm quite sure they would not be at all interested in hearing about cut-ups and hieroglyphics and still less interested to hear about silence.

Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages.