Jack Kerouac Quotes

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.

To heal the wound, you have to go into the dark night of the soul.

You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul.

When I was 17, I had an experience that I later learned could be called a 'mystical experience.' It was almost violent. No faces, voices, nothing like that. It is like the world burst and flamed into life all around me. That is not a great image, but it is as good as I will ever do.

At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day the world had changed. It needed a different language.

Every individual has in himself perfection. It lies within the dark recesses of his physical being.

I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a human being.

To break out of the chaos of my darkness Into a lucid day is all my will. My words like eyes in night, stare to reach A centre for their light: and my acts thrown To distant places by impatient violence Yet lock together to mould a path of stone Out of my darkness into a lucid day.

Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself. A mentor is someone who allows you to know that no matter how dark the night, in the morning joy will come. A mentor is someone who allows you to see the higher part of yourself when sometimes it becomes hidden to your own view.

We come to know who we really are in life during the dark and difficult and desolate days of our journey.

One night alone in prayer might make us new men, changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to triumphing.

And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when we seem to be useless and worthy of all contempt, when we seem to have failed, when we seem to be destroyed and devoured, it is then that the deep and secret selfishness that is too close to us for us to identify is stripped away from our souls. It is in this darkness that we find liberty. It is in this abandonment that we are made strong. This is the night which empties us and makes us pure.

I felt an unrelenting restlessness. It was the first time I had ever experienced jealousy, and that emotion clung to my skin day and night like a dark stain, a contamination I could not shed; it became so unbearable that when finally I rid myself of it, I was freed forever of the desire to possess another person or the temptation ever to belong to anyone.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee... Give me my rapture today.

There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone.

You must go into the dark in order to bring forth your light.

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.

There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.

If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development

Some praise the Lord for Light, The living spark; I thank God for the Night The healing dark.

I've always liked the moonless night best. It's easier to say things in the dark. It's easier to be yourself.