I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

Accept loss forever.

Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.

My witness is the empty sky.

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

Mankind is like dogs, not gods - as long as you don't get mad they'll bite you - but stay mad and you'll never be bitten. Dogs don't respect humility and sorrow.

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.

A pain stabbed my heart as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.

All of life is a foreign country.

I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.

All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse.

I don't really go out at all.

I got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove.

I really hate to write.

I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic.

It's hard to write haiku. I write long, silly Indian poems.

My father and my mother and my sister and I have always voted Republican, always.

My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet.

My story is endless. I put in a teletype roll, you know, you know what they are, you have them in newspapers, and run it through there and fix the margins and just go, go - just go, go, go.

Notoriety and public confession in the literary form is a frazzler of the heart you were born with, believe me.

Symbolism is alright in 'fiction,' but I tell true life stories simply about what happened to people I knew.

The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles.

Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.

The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view.

The best teacher is experience and not through someone’s distorted point of view.

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.

Rest and be kind, you don’t have to prove anything.

My aunt once said that the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness.

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize youre already in heaven now.

We had longer ways to go. But no matter the road is life.

Dont drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.

I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.

My fault my failure is not in the passions I have but in my lack of control of them.

And when the fogs over and the stars and the moon come out at night itll be a beautiful sight.

The sun on your back. Two fists in the wind. And the horizon teasing you farther down a great road. We had longer ways to go. But no matter the road is life.

The truth of the matter is you die all you do is die and yet you live yes you live and thats no Harvard lie.

Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling with a heavy pack is easier than it sounds you just cant fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.

For life is holy and every moment is precious.