Elena Montemurro

9 Beautiful Quotes From Jack Kerouac's Lost Novel: The Sea Is My Brother

The book was uncovered 70 years after it was penned by a young Kerouac, who hid it away on purpose. He considered it to be "a crock as literature."
Bianca Sparacino
August 31, 2016
“Dreams were so irrational, so gray with a nameless terror  — and yet, too, so haunting and beautiful.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“[He] seemed at home and content now they were sailing, as though leaving the port meant the cessation of all his worries, and heading out to sea a new era of peace and amenity.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“They laughed raucously and proceeded on down the street. From then on, Wesley was aware of only three things: that he drank two more enormous draughts from the bottle; that he was in New York at night, because they were walking in a steep canyon between tall corniced buildings that leaned crazily, and the stars were very far away from all this, nodding, aloof, cool up there overhead, and sternly sober; and finally, that he discovered he was holding an empty quart bottle as they climbed the stoop to the apartment, so he turned around and hurled it far up the empty street, and when the glass shattered and the girls screamed, he wanted to tell them that was what he thought of all the talk they had made tonight.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“What wrong was there in treating his own life, within the bounds of moral conscience, as he chose and as he freely wished?”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“And so I measure things in the light of their imperfection , or wrong ; on that basis , I can say what is not good, but I refuse to dawdle about what is supposed good.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“I love life’s casual beauty - I fear its awful strength.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“I still doubt if they know what’s good: they only know what’s wrong, like me. Their dreams are beautiful, but insufficient, improbable, and most of all short of the mark.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“Art was the revolt of the free.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac
“All life is but a skull-bone and
A rack of ribs through which
we keep passing food & fuel -
just so’s we can burn so
furious beautiful.”
— Jack Kerouac, The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel
Tagged: Lost Novels, Kerouac