The Dharma Bums quotes

Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down with my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated the clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara.

I warned him at once I didn't give a goddamn about the mythology and all the names and national flavors of Buddhism

my karma was to be born in America where nobody has any fun or believes in anything, especially freedom.

It was exactly like he'd said: wet, immense, timbered, mountainous, cold, exhilarating, challenging.

The chipmunk ran into the rocks and the butterfly came out. It was as simple as that.