“If critics say your work stinks it's because they want it to stink and they can make it stink by scaring you into conformity with their comfortable little standards. Standards so low that they can no longer be considered "dangerous" but set in place in their compartmental understandings.”

American novelist and poet

Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, he became a central figure in the Beat Generation and is known for helping shape it alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. His work is closely tied to that literary movement, and his reputation rests on the writing that helped define its voice and outlook. He is remembered as a novelist and poet whose name remains strongly associated with the Beat Generation.