“Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac”
“I was impressed with Jack [Kerouac]’s commitment to serious writing at the expense of everything else in his life. At a time when the middle class was burgeoning with new homes, two-tone American cars, and black-and-white TVs, when American happiness was defined by upwardly mobile consumerism, Kerouac etched a different existence and he wrote in an original language.”
“Jack Kerouac was cool because he had no idea he was.”
“The cruellest thing you can do to Kerouac is reread him at thirty-eight.”
“Capote's rejoinder to the Kerouac assertion that he never needed to edit his writing: "That's not writing .That's typing.”