Dharma Bums Quote Response 72-94

Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
p. # 83

"Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,"

Ray Smith is the person who says this. I felt that this was kind of contradictory to all of his views on life, and Buddhism. Buddhists threasure life, and being outdoors, and trying to stay in touch with nature, but at this point in the story that is not what he feels.

Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
p. #83

"'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.'"

This was not so much a quote from the book, as it is an ancient Buddhist saying. What it means is that do not stop when you think you have reached the top. You will never reach the top, you have to keep climbing even if it seems that you can't.