LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.
Interpretation
This quote contrasts the loneliness of Los Angeles with the sense of community found in New York City.
Jack Kerouac contrasts the experiences of living in Los Angeles and New York City, depicting LA as a harsh and solitary place, while suggesting that New York, despite its harsh winter, offers a vibrant sense of camaraderie and connection among its inhabitants. This highlights how different cities can evoke different emotional responses and social interactions, emphasizing the importance of community and connection in urban life.
In practice
In a speech about urban development, one might reference Kerouac's quote to discuss the importance of fostering community in city planning.
Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that cramp they didn't really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume.
I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.
My aunt once said that the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness.
The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis. She was nearsighted. When we got off to eat I had to lead her by the hand to the lunch counter. She bought my meals; my sandwiches were all gone. In exchange I told her long stories.
Holding up my purring cat to the moon. I sighed.
It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.
Animals have come to mean so much in our lives. We live in a fragmented and disconnected culture. Politics are ugly, religion is struggling, technology is stressful, and the economy is unfortunate. What's one thing that we have in our lives that we can depend on? A dog or a cat loving us unconditionally, every day, very faithfully.
He's a wallflower. You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.
A little still she strove, and much repented, And whispering “I will ne'er consent”—consented.
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with someone, up went her back like a cat's; or she purred.
Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new married couple; in that of the lady particularly; it tells you that her lot is disposed of in this world; that you can have no hopes for her.
What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.
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