"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. 

My moments in Denver were coming to an end, I could feel it when I walked her home, on the 

way back I stretched out on the grass of an old church with a bunch of hobos, and their talk made 

me want to get back on that road. Every now and then one would get up and hit a passer-by for a 

dime. They talked of harvests moving north. It was warm and soft. 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 heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotive howling off 

to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my star further. "

On the Road, Jack Kerouac