On the Road Admiration Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #16

Where was his father? - old bum Dean Moriarty the Tinsmith, riding freights, working as a scullion in railroad cookshacks, stumbling, down-crashing in wino alley nights, expiring on coal piles, dropping his yellowed teeth one by one in the gutters of the West. Dean had every right to die the sweet deaths of complete love of his Marylou-1 didn’t want to interfere, I just wanted to follow. (II.5.14).

Sal is unwilling to sleep with Marylou because of his idolatry of Dean.

Quote #17

I looked out the window at the winking neons and said to myself, Where is Dean and why isn’t he concerned about our welfare? I lost faith in him that year. I stayed in San Francisco a week and had the beatest time of my life. (II.10.1)

Sal’s rejection by Dean is made more poignant by his idolatry of Dean; he has been abandoned by his hero.

Quote #18

Down at 23rd and Welton a softball game was going on under floodlights which also illuminated the gas tank. A great eager crowd roared at every play. The strange young heroes of all kinds, white, colored, Mexican, pure Indian, were on the field, performing with heart-breaking seriousness. Just sandlot kids in uniform. Never in my life as an athlete had I ever permitted myself to perform like this in front of families and girl friends and kids of the neighborhood, at night, under lights; always it had been college, big-time, sober-faced; no boyish, human joy like this. Now it was too late. (III.1.4)

Sal envies and idolizes the young boys in much the same way that he idolizes Dean. What he finds so admirable, in both cases, is fearlessness and recklessness.