Quotes on Dharma Bums

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.

One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.

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

To the children and the innocent it's all the same.

Mind is the Maker, for no reason at all, for all this creation, created to fall.

Pain or love or danger makes you real again.

Better to sleep in an uncomfortable bed free, than sleep in a comfortable bed unfree.

Who can leap the world's ties and sit with me among white clouds?

Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.

Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that's the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly waters. And if your cans are redhot and you can't hold them in your hands, just use good old railroad gloves, that's all.

Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said, "God, I love you" and looked to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other." To the children and the innocent it's all the same.

Let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.