# Quote — Jack Kerouac, On the Road

> They were great, grave Indians and they were the source of mankind and the fathers of it... And they knew this when we passed, ostensibly self-important moneybag Americans on a lark in their land; they knew who was the father and who was the son of antique life on earth, and made no comment.

- Author: [Jack Kerouac](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac.md)
- Book: [On the Road](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Road#Part_four) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road/they-were-great

## More from this book

> The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road/the-air-was.md)

> I want to be like him. He's never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out, he knows time, he has nothing to do but rock back and forth. Man, he's the end! You see, if you go like him all the time you'll finally get it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road/i-want-to-be-like.md)

> The driver was a fiddler for a California cowboy band. He had a brand-new car and drove eighty miles an hour. ‘I don’t drink when I drive,’ he said and handed me a pint. I took a drink and offered him one. ‘What the hail,’ he said and drank.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road/the-driver-was.md)