His friends said, "Why do you have that ugly thing hanging there?" and Bull said, "I like it because it's ugly." All his life was in that line.
Interpretation
Embracing the beauty in imperfections can reflect one's identity and personal taste.
This quote by Jack Kerouac highlights the idea that true appreciation of art and life often lies in accepting and valuing imperfections. Bull's fondness for something considered 'ugly' symbolizes a deeper understanding that uniqueness and authenticity can be found in what society may overlook or reject, suggesting that individual perspectives are vital in defining beauty.
In practice
Using this quote during an art critique to emphasize the importance of subjective viewpoints.
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.
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.
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.
The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.
All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there β that, one might say, is created.
Generally, literary prizes are significant not for who the winner is but the discussion they create around books.
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