--- title: "4 Birth and death Quotes By Jack Kerouac" description: "4 Birth and death quotes by Jack Kerouac. Plus more from Jack Kerouac and more Birth and death sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c4/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when_69372.jpg" --- > [“We just think that we're being born, when we're born; (headfirst crying out of the smile of the womb, if we'd only…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when-we-re-born-headfirst-crying/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c4/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when_69372.jpg) > [“Sometimes during the night I'd look at my poor sleeping mother cruelly crucified there in the American night because of no-money, no-hope-of-money,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-my-poor-sleeping-mother-2/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e53/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-m_1231548.jpg) > [“And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/and-for-just-a-moment-i-had-reached-the-point-of-ecstasy-that-i-2/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c3b/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_and-for-just-a-moment-i-had-reached-the_1254652.jpg) > [“I could hear and indescribable seething roar which wasn't which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/i-could-hear-and-indescribable-seething-roar-which-wasn-t-which-wasn/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/527/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_i-could-hear-and-indescribable-seething_1267670.jpg) ## Other authors on Birth and death - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b010/author-frederick-lenz-36205.jpg) Frederick Lenz 12 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/birth-and-death/frederick-lenz/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b018/author-mitch-albom-68622.jpg) Mitch Albom 7 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/birth-and-death/mitch-albom/) ## More by Jack Kerouac > [Bein Crazy is the least of my worries.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/bein-crazy-is-the-least-of-my-worries/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [I'm Catholic and I can't commit suicide, but I plan to drink myself to death.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/i-m-catholic-and-i-can-t-commit-suicide-but-i-plan-to-drink-myself-to/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/the-beat-generation-that-was-a-vision-that-we-had-john-clellon-holmes/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [But, outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb and capable of doing horrible things.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/but-outside-of-being-a-sweet-little-girl-she-was-awfully-dumb-and/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“For when you realized that God is Everything you know that you've got to love everything no matter how bad it is, in the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/for-when-you-realized-that-god-is-everything-you-know-that-you-ve-got/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“I'm an idealist who has outgrown my idealism I have nothing to do the rest of my life but do it and the rest…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/i-m-an-idealist-who-has-outgrown-my-idealism-i-have-nothing-to-do-the/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“Most of them were running away from something―usually the law.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/most-of-them-were-running-away-from-something-usually-the-law/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“Non lo so, non importa e non fa nessuna differenza.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/non-lo-so-non-importa-e-non-fa-nessuna-differenza/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“And in the flush of the first few days of joy I confidently tell myself (not expecting what I'll do in three weeks only)…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/and-in-the-flush-of-the-first-few-days-of-joy-i-confidently-tell/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [I want a blaze of light to flame in me forever in a timeless, dear love of everything. And why should I pretend to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/i-want-a-blaze-of-light-to-flame-in-me-forever-in-a-timeless-dear/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“For the next week that was all I heard - manana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/for-the-next-week-that-was-all-i-heard-manana-a-lovely-word-and-one/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“O how wonderful life is, how miraculous, God made this and God made that", "how do you know he doesn't hate what He did:…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/o-how-wonderful-life-is-how-miraculous-god-made-this-and-god-made/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [Notoriety and public confession in the literary form is a frazzler of the heart you were born with, believe me.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/notoriety-and-public-confession-in-the-literary-form-is-a-frazzler-of/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [I promise I shall never give up, and that I'll die yelling & laughing.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/i-promise-i-shall-never-give-up-and-that-i-ll-die-yelling-laughing/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) > [“The hot water pools are steaming, Fagan and Monsanto and the others are all sitting peacefully up to their necks, they're all naked, but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/the-hot-water-pools-are-steaming-fagan-and-monsanto-and-the-others/) [Jack Kerouac](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jack-kerouac/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/birth-and-death/jack-kerouac/#itemlist", "name": "4 Birth and death Quotes By Jack Kerouac", "numberOfItems": 4, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“We just think that we're being born, when we're born; (headfirst crying out of the smile of the womb, if we'd only known that it was all the same before getting involved in Samsara---saving motion and nervousness, not forsaking peace---I remember being forced out---to the discriminatory prickles and thorns of the world)--- We're still the same old substance, High Hearable Essence Light---(whatever it really is, & Empty)--- Unbornness is the above--- We just think that we're dying, when we die!---headfirst falling in the airplane, falling once again, from stage-emptiness to stage-emptiness---unborn and undying and undead---Birth and death not a dualism, no difference---same Dharmakaya Universal Essence--- No death, no birth, no error, no \"prose\", but uncreated single substance essence flow of transitory unreal words riding an unreal ride across the memory of the unreal word, I can't say that the world is Not that it is not - Because it is just from Mind”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jack Kerouac" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when-we-re-born-headfirst-crying/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c4/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when_69372.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c4/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when_69372.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c4/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_we-just-think-that-we-re-being-born-when_69372.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We just think that we're being born, when we're born; (headfirst crying out of the smile of the womb, if…” — Jack Kerouac", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Sometimes during the night I'd look at my poor sleeping mother cruelly crucified there in the American night because of no-money, no-hope-of-money, no family, no nothing, just myself the stupid son of plans all of them compacted of eventual darkness. God how right Hemingway was when he said there was no remedy for life - and to think that negative little paper-shuffling prissies should write condescending obituaries about a man who told the truth, nay who drew breath in pain to tell a tale like that! ... No remedy but in my mind I raise a fist to High Heaven promising that I shall bull whip the first bastard who makes fun of human hopelessness anyway - I know it's ridiculous to pray to my father that hunk of dung in a grave yet I pray to him anyway, what else shall I do? sneer? shuffle paper on a desk and burp rationality? Ah thank God for all the Rationalists the worms and vermin got. Thank God for all the hate mongering political pamphleteers with no left or right to yell about in the Grave of Space. I say that we shall all be reborn with the Only One, and that's what makes me go on, and my mother too. She has her rosary in the bus, don't deny her that, that's her way of stating the fact. If there can't be love among men let there be love at least between men and God. Human courage is an opiate but opiates are human too. If God is an opiate so am I. Thefore eat me. Eat the night, the long desolate American between Sanford and Shlamford and Blamford and Crapford, eat the hematodes that hang parasitically from dreary southern trees, eat the blood in the ground, the dead Indians, the dead pioneers, the dead Fords and Pontiacs, the dead Mississippis, the dead arms of forlorn hopelessness washing underneath - Who are men, that they can insult men? Who are these people who wear pants and dresses and sneer? What am I talking about? I'm talking about human helplessness and unbelievable loneliness in the darkness of birth and death and asking 'What is there to laugh about in that?' 'How can you be clever in a meatgrinder?' 'Who makes fun of misery?' There's my mother a hunk of flesh that didn't ask to be born, sleeping restlessly, dreaming hopefully, beside her son who also didn't ask to be born, thinking desperately, praying hopelessly, in a bouncing earthly vehicle going from nowhere to nowhere, all in the night, worst of all for that matter all in noonday glare of bestial Gulf Coast roads - Where is the rock that will sustain us? Why are we here? What kind of crazy college would feature a seminar where people talk about hopelessness, forever?”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jack Kerouac" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jack-kerouac/sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-my-poor-sleeping-mother-2/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e53/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-m_1231548.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e53/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-m_1231548.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e53/jack-kerouac-182_birth-and-death_sometimes-during-the-night-i-d-look-at-m_1231548.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Sometimes during the night I'd look at my poor sleeping mother cruelly crucified there in the American night…” — Jack Kerouac", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotuslands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. I could hear an indescribable seething roar which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it. I realized it was only because of the stability of the intrinsic Mind that these ripples of birth and death took place, like the action of the wind on a sheet of pure, serene, mirror-like water. I felt sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein; like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes you shudder; my feet tingled. I thought I was going to die the very next moment. 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