John Clellon Holmes Quotes

#1. They were brought up in these ruins and no longer notice them.

John Clellon Holmes

#2. For invented gods invariably disappoint those who worship them.

John Clellon Holmes

#3. The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked.

John Clellon Holmes

#4. The idiotic industry of an ant building his hill in the path of a glacier, and imagining that he is free.

John Clellon Holmes

#5. Some books accrete things to themselves like a magnet. The writer risks sterility by subjecting the mysterious power of imagination to the devices of mere comprehension.

John Clellon Holmes

#6. Nothing like the road to rub all the sand out of your soul.

John Clellon Holmes

#7. But all I could think of was taking some books to read in jail. I held everybody up, choosing which ones to take.

John Clellon Holmes

#8. A joy without object or reason rose within him, but like all such joys ebbed into frustration almost immediately because he did not know how to express it.

John Clellon Holmes

#9. Jazz music hashaunted America for seventy years.It has tempted us out of our lily-white reserve with its black promise of untrammeled joy.

John Clellon Holmes

#10. ...unlike the Lost Generation, which was occupied with the loss of faith, the Beat Generation is becoming more and more occupied with the need for it.

John Clellon Holmes