Clellon Holmes Quotes & Sayings

Nothing like the road to rub all the sand out of your soul. — John Clellon Holmes

An Army is an instrument of government. It must be used in such a way that it furthers the interests of government. Otherwise what use is it? Only an extremely costly machine for ... minting medals. — Joe Abercrombie

Men may scoff, and men may pray, But they pay Every pleasure with a pain. — William Ernest Henley

You can't say, "I'm gonna make a hit movie." You're as dead as you could be. — Jack Nicholson

Listen - man is a child of Nature. When he turns against his mother - he's done! He may not find out about it right away, but he will. — Martha Ostenso

For invented gods invariably disappoint those who worship them. — John Clellon Holmes

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

I hang out with a lot of older people, so I've matured a little bit, but I do still have my immature side. — Justin Bieber

We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it's not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts. — Spike Lee

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

Humankind has always had access to Shadow
dreams, nightmares, legends, inspiration, Humanity taps into Shadow every day. And when we die, we pass into Twilight. — Erin Kellison

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

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

With anything that would make things better, believe as much as you can - then believe a little more. — Daniel Taylor

John Clellon Holmes ... and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent existentialism and I said 'You know John, this is really a beat generation'; and he leapt up and said, 'That's it, that's right!' — Jack Kerouac

The idiotic industry of an ant building his hill in the path of a glacier, and imagining that he is free. — John Clellon Holmes

For the first time (but how long will it take us to acknowledge this?) in the history of ideas, a philosopher had dedicated a whole book to the question of atheism. He professed it, demonstrated it, arguing and quoting, sharing his reading and his reflections, and seeking confirmation from his own observations of the everyday world. His title sets it out clearly: Memoir of the Thoughts and Feelings of Jean Meslier; and so does his subtitle: Clear and Evident Demonstrations of the Vanity and Falsity of All the Religions of the World. The book appeared in 1729, after his death. Meslier had spent the greater part of his life working on it. The history of true atheism had begun. — Michel Onfray

We must master many subjects in order to implement our dreams. Our personal journey begins by gathering appropriate learning experiences and awakening our minds to observe, evaluate, and recall what we experience. — Kilroy J. Oldster

While leaning over the toilet getting up his nerve, he thought that the moment before making yourself throw up must be very like the instant before suicide. You are almost content to bear the sickening headache and the torment in your stomach rather than go through that moment. But the prospect of relief made you foolhardy and you jammed your finger down your throat. — John Clellon Holmes

A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom - it's gone. — Edward R. Murrow

He'd been toting it, and checking it, and packing and unpacking, all the way since fate was on the river - that's how long - the Big River - Fate Marable and his riverboat caliope (Cleo seemed to recall), who hadastonished the landings between New Orleans and St. Louis with the wild, harsh, skirling Gypsy music, and left there, echoing in the young and restless even as it dies off round the bed; to linger with them thereafter, in the pelting roar of November midnights and the clickety-clack of lonesome valley freights, until they up one night and go after it in a battered bus, following the telephone wires that make a zigzag music staff against the evening sky - some variation of that basic beginning could be told for everyone who jazz has touched and altered. — John Clellon Holmes

They were brought up in these ruins and no longer notice them. — John Clellon Holmes

I got you again. We have to stop meeting like this. — Bella Jeanisse

The Inner Self
... What makes us who we are
should be glorified
personified
and sung unto the stars! — Muse

We must have life building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. — Swami Vivekananda

...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

If everybody was so reverent of the institute of marriage, how did all the adultery get committed? — Zoe Heller

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