- Mrs. Kerouac: I don't understand why you're doing this?
- Jack Kerouac: I don't either; but, I know I want to do it.
- Mrs. Kerouac: But, I thought you always wanted to be a writer?
- Jack Kerouac: I do. That's why I want to do it. I want to get him down on paper.
- Mrs. Kerouac: Can't he get himself down on paper?
- Neal Cassady: Hey, Jack. This little chick back here just wants to settle down and make me miserable.
- Jack Kerouac: You think she'll get away with it?
- Neal Cassady: Oh, well, I kinda doubt it.
- Stevie: What are you gonna do with that? TP the Cow Palace?
- Jack Kerouac: Nope. I'm gonna finish typin' my book. No foolin' around. I'm gonna play this thing like Charlie Parker.
- Stevie: Bennies!
- Jack Kerouac: Forget it. I need 'em.
- Stevie: You're in a hurry all of the sudden.
- Jack Kerouac: No hurry. Same hurry. You know, it's just fame, overnight success. A house in the hills. A little lady. A picket fence. A couple of kids. A station wagon.
- Stevie: Somethin' a little better than a flop house.
- Jack Kerouac: Yeah. A little bit better.
- Stevie: I'm no whiz kid like Jack or Ira, but, they're just using you, anyway.
- Neal Cassady: I know.
- Stevie: I don't know what they'd write about if it wasn't for you?
- Stevie: What are you doing with two t-shirts?
- Neal Cassady: I always wear two t-shirts.
- Stevie: Crazy.
- Neal Cassady: I know I'm crazy.
- [kiss]
- Neal Cassady: Don't do anything crazy, Stevie.
- Ogden: I'm as anxious as the next man to find a point of view to sell. Your's just isn't going to make it, sweetheart. You all lack such - charisma.
- Ira: That's right, Jack. Come on, get angry. Come on, get angry and stay angry until you get what you want.
- Ira: Like dripping out of the Sun, Momus, Momus, Son of night, Momus, Invisible Coalitions, Deranged Industrialists, Ghostly Nations, Insolent Asylums, Momus, Momus, Cocksucker in Momus, Malignant bombs, Malignant bombs, Glass jism!
- Neal Cassady: Very good, Ira.
- Ira: I'm not finished. What did you think?
- Carolyn Cassady: Well, I guess I'm kind of old fashion; but, I sort of go for "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".
- Ira: Eliot!
- Carolyn Cassady: Yeah.
- Ira: Oh! You mean the bank clerk! The world's big authority on the end of civilization. You wanna know about civilization? You ask any bum on the bowery after he's had 12 shots of Sterno. The puke encrusted scabs on his face are a more eloquent poem than Eliot ever wrote. Eliot?
- Carolyn Cassady: So, eh, how long are you here for, Ira?
- Ira: They got free tea growing in god damn fields down there.
- Neal Cassady: Well, then, we'll just get high drivin' around with the windows open.
- Carolyn Cassady: Must you be so loud?
- Ira: I'm sorry if I'm a threat to you.
- Carolyn Cassady: You're not a threat to me.
- Ira: I'm a threat to everybody. I know that. Maybe I could learn some table manners. I don't know. Being polite seems like such a arrogant gesture to me. I see a lot of stupid pain in this world and it makes me angry. So, I shout. What else am I going to do with my yap? Run for office?
- Neal Cassady: Jack?
- Jack Kerouac: Yeah, Jack.
- Neal Cassady: By God, this is great. I can't bare to drink alone in my condition.
- Jack Kerouac: What condition?
- Neal Cassady: I'm broke!
- Jack Kerouac: Just because it didn't work out for you, doesn't mean it's not gonna work out for me.
- Neal Cassady: What are you gonna do? You're gonna punch into a job, nine to five? Come home, rake leaves, take care of the kids, right?
- Jack Kerouac: Sure. That's that's the right idea.
- Neal Cassady: Bull shit! She doesn't believe that for a minute.
- Jack Kerouac: Yes she does.
- Carolyn Cassady: No I don't!
- Jack Kerouac: Ah, it doesn't make any difference. I'm gonna do it anyway.
- Carolyn Cassady: I don't want you to do it.
- Jack Kerouac: Well, Neal does.
- Carolyn Cassady: Is that who you're doin' it for?
- Jack Kerouac: I'm doin' it for you both. I'm doin' it for all three of us.
- Carolyn Cassady: God, I guess I just expected too much.
- Neal Cassady: Yeah, I know. We both expected too much. Do you think you can make her happy, Jack?
- Jack Kerouac: I don't know.
- Carolyn Cassady: Why not? He doesn't expect a thing anymore.
- Jack Kerouac: What's wrong with being famous?
- Neal Cassady: Oh, come on, Jack. Listen, here, you know, we all gotta serve. But, the famous - they have to serve as an example.
- Neal Cassady: You sure do look cute when you're happy.
- Carolyn Cassady: You charm the pants off of me, when you are.
- Neal Cassady: Well, I'll miss you, Jack.
- Jack Kerouac: I'll miss you too.
- Neal Cassady: I love you, man.
- Jack Kerouac: I love you, too.
- Jack Kerouac: So, who would have guessed? I go for a ride with a guy and 10 years later they publish a novel about it.
- Neal Cassady: I've been holdin' down the fort for 10 years.
- Jack Kerouac: And I'll hold it down when I get back. You don't believe I'm comin' back. Do you believe I'm comin' back?
- Carolyn Cassady: Jack, it's alright if you're not comin' back.
- Carolyn Cassady: He didn't hear a word I said, did he? Neal?
- Neal Cassady: I didn't hear what you said.
- TV Talk Show Host: Well, gee, I guess if you didn't bring your bongos, we'll just have to talk. For any of you folks who may have been out testing your bomb shelters for the last few months, missed the news. Jack's book, "On The Road", is a smash hit that's turning the literary world upside down. It spawned a whole new bohemian lifestyle overnight. I hope you didn't change your t-shirt just for us, Jack. Seriously, if you haven't read it, Jack's book is a pretty shocking yarn about a bunch of kooky characters running around looking for - in the argot of negro jazz musicians - kicks. It's kind of a free love sort of thing where everybody seems to spend most of there time taking drugs and avoiding work, razors and bath tubs. Jack calls these frantic characters: beatniks. Don't you Jack?
- Jack Kerouac: Eh, no, actually, that is some term some columnist made up.
- TV Talk Show Host: What is it *exactly* that you write about, Jack?
- Jack Kerouac: Well, I don't know. Friendship.
- Jack Kerouac: Hey, Neal, listen to this, don't tell Carolyn, okay, but these guys - these guys fixed me up with some tomato from Vogue magazine... She's on page 39. Look her up!
- Jack Kerouac: What'd he say?
- TV Talk Show Host: What do you think he said?
- Jack Kerouac: Beat's me.
- [laughs]
- Poet: What do you think?
- Neal Cassady: What about?
- Poet: This is good. This is what's happening, now.
- Neal Cassady: Wait. What is this?
- Poet: This is the scene, man. I've got to eat too. You know that.
- Undercover Agent: Are you really the cat in that book man? They we're talkin' about?
- Neal Cassady: Not really, man. Not really.
- Undercover Agent: Ah, man, that's a pretty hep book, man. Swipin' cars, smokin' reefer. Man you're a pretty famous literary figure, man, you know. Hey, can you get rich off of that?
- Neal Cassady: What? What? Do I look rich to you? Do I look rich? Huh?
- Undercover Agent: Hey, man, any dude who's got two sticks of reefer and the wine spoleto is rich in my book.
- Undercover Agent: I guess the whole wide world is going to want to smoke reefer when they read that book, man.
- Neal Cassady: Yeah, well, listen, everybody wants to be hip.
- Jack Kerouac: What the hell did we do wrong?
- Carolyn Cassady: Oh, I don't think we did anything wrong. We just did it first.
- Jack Kerouac: Now, Neal's hangin' out with the zippy bippies, huh?
- Carolyn Cassady: Yeah. He's got a string of girls as long as your arm. He says we were born before our time.
- Jack Kerouac: Before our time?
- Carolyn Cassady: Yeah.
- Jack Kerouac: Well, the cat would say anything to get laid.
- Carolyn Cassady: Neal thought that life was destroyed by compromises. That was his weakness. Jack thought it was made by them, and that was his. I decided that compromises are like dental appointments... You're damned if you make 'em... And you're damned if you don't.
- Carolyn Cassady (as narrator): From friends, we expect loyalty; from writers, only sequels. Neal went to prison; Jack was sentenced to posterity. Something had ended. They used to call it innocence.