Gerald Nicosia quotes:

We are in an era where censorship is creeping back in through the Patriot Act and where people are.. being intimidated not to speak about what we should be speaking about,.

Kerouac's books portray a hero and narrator free and easy, confident, sure of his rebellion against the American system. In reality, Jack was torn between Catholicism, Buddhism, and his own demon-driven pursuit of kicks, between spirit and flesh, between mom's house and the Beat coffeehouse, patriotism and subversion, men and women, society and solitude, carousing and meditation, sacred and profane, secular and divine. It's a miracle he survived as long as he did.

People on a mission are unstoppable. God bless them for it. It would be a poorer, more miserable world without them.

You can't slow down intense people. They have to burn at their own rate.