“We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.”

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.