Beatnik Quotes

• I got treated very badly in Texas. They don't treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither had I.

  Janis Joplin

  Texas, People, Arthur

  90 Copy quote

• It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.

  Jack Kerouac

  Writing, Peculiar, Elements

  The New York Journal-American, December 8, 1960.

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• All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

  Janis Joplin

  Couple, Beer, Men

  86 Copy quote

• It took us a long time to find out that we had been lied to by our parents' generation. The moralities that were followed during our parents' generation were basically arbitrary. This caused a rift between the two generations, which was brought on by the beatniks

  Peter Fonda

  Two, Long, Parent

  55 Copy quote

• Rap is poetry to music, like beatniks without beards and bongos.

  David Lee Roth

  Rap, Beard, Bongos

  24 Copy quote

• The only thing I really wanted to be was a beatnik, and look what happened: I ended up being in a band.

  Debbie Harry

  Looks, Band, Wanted

  24 Copy quote

• the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Friends, Horse

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• Hippies believe the world could be a better place. Beatniks believe things aren’t going to get better and say the hell with it, stay stoned and have a good time.

  Janis Joplin

  Hippie, Believe, Get Better

  51 Copy quote

• I went one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must have really meant with "Beat"... the vision of the word Beat as being to mean beatific... People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks, bugniks and finally I was called the "avatar" of all this.

  Jack Kerouac

  Mean, People, Childhood

  Jack Kerouac, Ann Charters (1995). “The portable Jack Kerouac”, Penguin Group USA

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• It has to be acknowledged that in capitalist society, with its herds of hippies, originality has become a sort of fringe benefit, a mere convention, accepted obsolescence, the Beatnik model being turned in for the Hippie model, as though strangely obedient to capitalist laws of marketing.

  Mary McCarthy

  Hippie, Law, Marketing

  Mary McCarthy (1968). “Hanoi”, George Weidenfeld & Nicholson

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• Because the only people for me are the mad ones.

  Jack Kerouac

  Hippie, Yawning, People

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.

  Jack Kerouac

  Life, Stars, Eye

  Jack Kerouac, Ann Charters (1996). “Selected letters, 1940-1956”, Penguin Paperbacks

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• Woe to those who spit on the beat generation, the wind will blow it back.

  Bill Vaughan

  Blow, Wind, Enemy

  61 Copy quote

• The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.

  Jack Kerouac

  Hippie, Yawning, People

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• Standing on a street corner waiting for no one is power.

  Gregory Corso

  Power, Poetry, Waiting

  Gregory Corso, Bill Morgan (2003). “An Accidental Autobiography: The Selected Letters of Gregory Corso”, p.303, New Directions Publishing

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• Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my notebook, leaning against the microphone, cigarette dangling from my hand.

  Charles de Lint

  Notebook, Growing Up, Artist

  11 Copy quote

• We also have a lot of the same influences - we both read a lot of the beatniks. And yet what we actually do is almost exactly the opposite. His [ Hunter S. Thompson] political stuff is just wonderful, but basically nothing happens.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Opposites, Political, Hunters

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Cliches and stereotypes such as "beatnik" or "hippie" have been invented for the antitechnologists, the antisystem people, and will continue to be. But one does not convert individuals into mass people with the simple coining of a mass term.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Hippie, Simple, People

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.21, Harper Collins

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• I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic.

  Jack Kerouac

  Catholic

  Jack Kerouac (1990). “Safe in Heaven Dead: Interviews with Jack Kerouac”

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• There's this whole post-modern, nuevo beatnik, retro-bohemian thing going on, you know what I mean? You walk into some coffee shops, and it feels like you're an ex-patriot in Paris in the 20s. You're like, 'Hey, isn't that a young Ernest Hemingway over there? Yeah, I think it is! Hey, let's go have a look and see what he's writing... It's a Gap application.'

  Marc Maron

  Funny, Coffee, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• Naturally, grown-up citizens are concerned about the beatniks and delinquents. ... The question is why the grownups do not, more soberly, draw the same conclusions as the youth. Or, since no doubt many people are quite clear about the connection that the structure of society that has becoming increasingly dominant in our country is disastrous to the growth of excellence and manliness, why don't more people speak up and say so?

  Paul Goodman

  Country, People, Excellence

  Growing Up Absurd" by Paul Goodman, (p. 10), 1956.

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• But yet, but yet, woe, woe unto those who think that the Beat Generation means crime, delinquency, immorality, amorality ... woe unto those who attack it on the grounds that they simply don't understand history and the yearning of human souls ... woe in fact unto those who make evil movies about the Beat Generation where innocent housewives are raped by beatniks! ... woe unto those who spit on the Beat Generation, the wind'll blow it back.

  Jack Kerouac

  Mean, Thinking, Blow

  64 Copy quote

• It is a great feeling to know that from a window I can go to books to cans of beer to past loves. And from these gather enough dream to sneak out a back door.

  Gregory Corso

  Dream, Book, Beer

  Gregory Corso (1976). “Gasoline & Vestal Lady on Brattle: Pocket Poets Number 8”, p.105, City Lights Books

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• My dad was a big fan of comedy. He wanted to be a stand-up. He loved Lenny [Bruce]. He also loved Lord Buckley and jazz and stuff. He was a hipster. My parents were kind of beatnik-y, you know, for Salt Lake City. But my humor, I think, came from wanting to disarm people before they hit me.

  Judd Apatow

  Dad, Hipster, Thinking

  Source: www.elle.com

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• I think that in the past, in the '50s and '60s, after the existentialists and beatniks and hippie movements, the big deal was, Don't sell out. We live in a society that by virtue of the speed we communicate and sell, everything sells. The danger is buying in; that your concern becomes success, rather than fulfillment. They're two different beasts, and my feeling is that you should seek fulfillment. You should not measure your worth in how much you have or how popular you are, but how happy you are with what you do.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Hippie, Past, Thinking

  9 Copy quote