• He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and thugh he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him
• But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desiderous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’
• And here for the first time in my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because is washes it up
• So I could rest my tired soul a little, for one of the biggest troubles hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn’t make a mistake picking you up, and even entertain them almost, all of which is a great strain when you’re going all the way and don’t sleep in hotels.
• The floors of bus stations are the same all over the country, always covered with butts and spit and they give a feeling of sadness that only bus stations have
• They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation I was slowly joining.
• ‘What do you want out of life?’ I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.
• I suddenly began to realise that everybody in america is a natural-born thief
• ‘Don’t worry, man’ said big Ponzo. ‘Tomorrow we make a lot of money; tonight we don’t worry.’
• She understood Dean; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad.
• I had been spending a quiet Christmas in the country, as I realised when we got back into the house and I saw the Christmas tree, the presents, and smelled the roasting turkey and listened to the talk of the relatives, but now the bug was on me again, and the bug’s name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the road.
• Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one failing star to another til i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer to anybody except my own confusion.
• The purity of the road. The white line in the middle of the highway unrolled and hugged our left front tire as if glued to our groove.
• But why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds and unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?
• What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
• Dean’s California - wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actor.
• You know I don’t have close relationships with anybody any more - I don’t know what to do with these things. I hold things in my hand like pieces of crap and don’t know where to put it down.
• The waves are Chinese, but the earth is an Indian thing. As essential as rocks in the desert are they in the desert of ‘history’. And they knew this when we passed, ostensibly self-important moneybag Americans on a lark in their land; they knew who was the father and who was the son of antique life on earth, and made no comment. For when destruction comes to the world of ‘history; and the Apocalypse of the fellahin returns once more as so many times before, people will still stare with the same eyes from the caves of Mexico as well as from the caves of Bali, where it all began and where Ada was sucked and taught to know.