I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a sense of shared human experience and loneliness among individuals, particularly among young writers.
In this quote, Jack Kerouac reflects on the feeling of isolation even when surrounded by others, emphasizing that many young individuals share similar intense desires and struggles. It highlights the universal quest for understanding and connection amidst the noise of life, suggesting that loneliness is a common thread in the tapestry of human existence.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a literary gathering to evoke discussions about the struggles of writers.
Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that cramp they didn't really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume.
My aunt once said that the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness.
The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis. She was nearsighted. When we got off to eat I had to lead her by the hand to the lunch counter. She bought my meals; my sandwiches were all gone. In exchange I told her long stories.
Holding up my purring cat to the moon. I sighed.
It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.
What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?
The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes.
A dance is the devil's procession, and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his possession.
I haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.
Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue but of the life.
I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.
There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.
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