…because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
— Jack Kerouac from On The Road
I don’t even know where to start about this except to shake my head with wonder at words that do so well what I would like to do — that riff, that rolling rhythmic jazz that can make my heart beat every bit as hard as music sometimes with the way it makes me feel so much bigger inside. I wish all my words could do that.
This isn’t how I see my everyday self — there’s plenty about me and those I love that is commonplace, and sometimes there is nothing finer than to put my feet up with a bottle of beer and talk about the rain. That’s good. But these words go like a bolt of electricity straight into my writer’s soul, into the part of me that always burns this way even, I think, in my sleep.
All artists are a little mad. I used to think that was hyperbole at best and melodrama at worst, but these days I think it is nothing but the truth. And the madness is in the burning, in the drive to be one with the work and with all the self that is underneath, and that is stronger sometimes than anything else, especially common sense. And so we burn ourselves up.