On the Road Sex Quotes

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

Quote #1

Dean had dispatched the occupant of the apartment to the kitchen, probably to make coffee, while he proceeded with his love problems, for to him sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life, although he had to sweat and curse to make a living and so on. (I.1.4)

Sal immediately presents Dean’s sexual desires as the core of his personality.

Quote #2

Dean got up nervously, paced around, thinking, and decided the thing to do was to have Marylou make breakfast and sweep the floor. "In other words we’ve got to get on the ball, darling, what I’m saying, otherwise it’ll be fluctuating and lack of true knowledge or crystallization of our plans." Then I went away. (I.1.4)

Dean constricts the women in his life to certain gender roles.

Quote #3

"And where’s Marylou?" I asked, and Dean said she’d apparently whored a few dollars together and gone back to Denver - "the whore!" (I.1.6)

Though Marylou behaves the same way the men do, they call her a "whore" for her actions.

Quote #4

Along about three in the afternoon, after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand, a woman stopped for me in a little coupe. I had a twinge of hard joy as I ran after the car. But she was a middle-aged woman, actually the mother of sons my age, and wanted somebody to help her drive to Iowa. (I.2.2)

Sal’s first thought when he sees any woman is sex.

Quote #5

There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon - they were coming home from high school - but I had no time now for thoughts like that and promised myself a ball in Denver...So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines. (I.3.7)

Sal and Dean are both attracted to very young girls.

Quote #6

I went into a chili joint and the waitress was Mexican and beautiful. I ate, and then I wrote her a little love note on the back of the bill. The chili joint was deserted; everybody was somewhere else, drinking. I told her to turn the bill over. She read it and laughed. It was a little poem about how I wanted her to come and see the night with me.

"I’d love to, Chiquito, but I have a date with my boy friend."

"Can’t you shake him?"

"No, no, I don’t," she said sadly, and I loved the way she said it. (I.5.1-I.5.4)

Sal finds something to love in every girl he meets.

Quote #7

We picked up two girls, a pretty young blonde and a fat brunette. They were dumb and sullen, but we wanted to make them. We took them to a rickety nightclub that was already closing, and there I spent all but two dollars on Scotches for them and beer for us. I was getting drunk and didn’t care; everything was fine. My whole being and purpose was pointed at the little blonde. I wanted to go in there with all my strength. I hugged her and wanted to tell her. (I.5.6)

The closest Sal comes to madness is when he is with women.

Quote #8

Incidentally, a very beautiful Colorado gal shook me that cream; she was all smiles too; I was grateful, it made up for last night. I said to myself, Wow! What’ll Denver be like! (I.5.15)

Sal sees beauty and sex in virtually every woman he meets.

Quote #9

"The schedule is this: I came off work a half-hour ago. In that time Dean is balling Marylou at the hotel and gives me time to change and dress. At one sharp he rushes from Marylou to Camille - of course neither one of them knows what’s going on - and bangs her once, giving me time to arrive at one-thirty. Then he comes out with me - first he has to beg with Camille, who’s already started hating me - and we come here to talk till six in the morning. We usually spend more time than that, but it’s getting awfully complicated and he’s pressed for time. Then at six he goes back to Marylou - and he’s going to spend all day tomorrow running around to get the necessary papers for their divorce. Marylou’s all for it, but she insists on banging in the interim. She says she loves him - so does Camille." (I.7.12)

Despite his poor treatment of them, women clearly find something appealing about Dean.

Quote #10

We went up carpeted stairs. Carlo knocked; then he darted to the back to hide; he didn’t want Camille to see him. I stood in the door. Dean opened it stark naked. I saw a brunette on the bed, one beautiful creamy thigh covered with black lace, look up with mild wonder. (I.7.14)

Dean has no bashfulness when it comes to sex.

Quote #11

Off we rushed into the night; Carlo joined us in an alley. And we proceeded down the narrowest, strangest, and most crooked little city street I’ve ever seen, deep in the heart of Denver Mexican- town. We talked in loud voices in the sleeping stillness. "Sal," said Dean, "I have just the girl waiting for you at this very minute - if she’s off duty" (looking at his watch). "A waitress, Rita Bettencourt, fine chick, slightly hung-up on a few sexual difficulties which I’ve tried to straighten up and I think you can manage, you fine gone daddy you. So we’ll go there at once - we must bring beer, no, they have some themselves, and damn!" he said socking his palm. "I’ve just got to get into her sister Mary tonight."(I.7.20)

Just as Dean’s madness draws Sal in, so does his sexual prowess and, more importantly, his ability to obtain sex for Sal.

Quote #12

We got to the house where the waitress sisters lived. The one for me was still working; the sister that Dean wanted was in. We sat down on her couch. I was scheduled at this time to call Ray Rawlins. I did. He came over at once. Coming into the door, he took off his shirt and undershirt and began hugging the absolute stranger, Mary Bettencourt. Bottles rolled on the floor. Three o’clock came. Dean rushed off for his hour of reverie with Camille. He was back on time. (I.7.28)

Unlike Sal, Ray doesn’t hesitate when it comes to sex.

Quote #13

Then I went to meet Rita Bettencourt and took her back to the apartment. I got her in my bedroom after a long talk in the dark of the front room. She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing. She sighed in the dark. "What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.

"I don’t know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. 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. (I.10.9, I.10.10).

Sal looks for a woman with energy and verve, but is essentially unable to find what he wants: a female version of Dean.

Quote #14

I wanted to go and get Rita again and tell her a lot more things, and really make love to her this time, and calm her fears about men. Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk - real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious. (I.10.11)

While he seems to be interested in sex, it is not the act that Sal seeks, rather the emotional connection he hopes to obtain through it.

Quote #15

The reason I’m going into everything that happened in San Fran is because it ties up with everything else all the way down the line. Remi Boncœur and I met at prep school years ago; but the thing that really linked us together was my former wife. Remi found her first. He came into my dorm room one night and said, "Paradise, get up, the old maestro has come to see you." I got up and dropped some pennies on the floor when I put my pants on. It was four in the afternoon; I used to sleep all the time in college. "All right, all right, don’t drop your gold all over the place. I have found the gonest little girl in the world and I am going straight to the Lion’s Den with her tonight." And he dragged me to meet her. A week later she was going with me. (I.11.4)

Sal’s past actions toward Remi are surprisingly selfish, making him seem for a moment like Dean.

Quote #16

When I found him in Mill City that morning he had fallen on the beat and evil days that come to young guys in their middle twenties. He was hanging around waiting for a ship, and to earn his living he had a job as a special guard in the barracks across the canyon. His girl Lee Ann had a bad tongue and gave him a calldown every day. They spent all week saving pennies and went out Saturdays to spend fifty bucks in three hours. Remi wore shorts around the shack, with a crazy Army cap on his head. Lee Ann went around with her hair up in pincurls. Thus attired, they yelled at each other all week. 1 never saw so many snarls in all my born days. But on Saturday night, smiling graciously at each other, they took off like a pair of successful Hollywood characters and went on the town. (I.11.6)

There is a mad sort of logic in the relationships Sal encounters.

Quote #17

I looked at Lee Ann. She was a fetching hunk, a honey-colored creature, but there was hate in her eyes for both of us. Her ambition was to marry a rich man. She came from a small town in Oregon. She rued the day she ever took up with Remi. On one of his big showoff weekends he spent a hundred dollars on her and she thought she’d found an heir. Instead she was hung-up in this shack, and for lack of anything else she had to stay there. She had a job in Frisco; she had to take the Greyhound bus at the crossroads and go in every day. She never forgave Remi for it. (I.11.11)

In On the Road, woman and men are equally manipulative when it comes to sex and relationships.

Quote #18

"Agreed!" I said. Remi ran to tell Lee Ann. I wanted to jump down from a mast and land right in her, but I kept my promise to Remi. I averted my eyes from her. (I.11.76)

Unlike Dean when he leaves Sal in Mexico to return to Inez, Sal values friendship above sex.

Quote #19

Meanwhile I began going to Frisco more often; I tried everything in the books to make a girl. I even spent a whole night with a girl on a park bench, till dawn, without success. She was a blonde from Minnesota. There were plenty of queers. Several times I went to San Fran with my gun and when a queer approached me in a bar John I took out the gun and said, "Eh? Eh? What’s that you say?" He bolted. I’ve never understood why I did that; I knew queers all over the country. It was just the loneliness of San Francisco and the fact that I had a gun. I had to show it to someone. I walked by a jewelry store and had the sudden impulse to shoot up the window, take out the finest rings and bracelets, and run to give them to Lee Ann. Then we could flee to Nevada together. (I.11.77)

Sal sees women as a solution to his sexual restlessness, just as his travels on the road are a solution to his geographical restlessness.

Quote #20

I spun around till I was dizzy; I thought I’d fall down as in a dream, clear off the precipice. Oh where is the girl I love? I thought, and looked everywhere, as I had looked everywhere in the little world below. And before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent; somewhere far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam. There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded - at least that’s what I thought then. (I.11.102)

Sal searches in vain for a woman to love, just as he searches in vain for a city to settle in.