Ken Kesey Quotes & Sayings

Fascism wants Baptism coast to coast. — Ken Kesey

...younger patients, known as 'Acutes' because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed... — Ken Kesey

I'd wander for days in the fog, scared I'd never see another thing, then there'd be that door, opening to show me the mattress padding on the other side to stop out the sounds, the men standing in a line like zombies among shiny copper wires and tubes pulsing light, and the bright scrape of arcing electricity. I'd take my place in the line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band goes across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dial and down the line and pointing at me with a rubber glove. — Ken Kesey

But, gee," the other nurse says, "what on earth would MAKE a man want to do something like disrupt the ward for, Miss Ratched? What possible motive ... ?"
"You seem to forget, MISS Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane. — Ken Kesey

You've got to get out
and pray to the sky
to appreciate the sunshine;
otherwise
you're just a lizard
standing there
with the sun shining on you. — Ken Kesey

Most merciful God, accept these two poor sinners into your arms. And keep the doors ajar for
the coming of the rest of us, because you are witnessing the end, the absolute, irrevocable, fantastic
end. I've finally realized what is happening. It is our last fling. We are doomed henceforth. Must
screw our courage to the sticking point and face up to our impending fate. We [255] shall be all of us
shot at dawn. One hundred cc's apiece. Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we,,,
face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines!
Libriums! Stelazines! And with a wave of her sword, blooie! Tranquilize all of us completely out of
existence. — Ken Kesey

I felt like you can write forever, but you have a short time to raise a family. And I think a family is a lot more important than writing. — Ken Kesey

I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it. I'm tired. I'm give out trying. You got chances. I had so many insults I was born dead. You got it easy. I was born dead an' life was hard. I'm tired. I'm tired out talking and standing up. I been dead fifty-five years." The — Ken Kesey

But it's the truth even if it didn't happen. — Ken Kesey

Sweeping the dorm soon's it's empty, I'm after dust mice under his bed when I get a smell of something that makes me realize for the first time since I been in the hospital that the big dorm full of beds, sleeps forty grown men, has always been sticky with a thousand other smells - smells of germicide, zinc ointment, and foot powder, smell of piss and sour old-man manure, of Pablum and eyewash, of musty shorts and socks musty even when they're fresh back from the laundry, the stiff odor of starch in the linen, the acid stench of morning mouths, the banana smell of machine oil, and sometimes the smell of singed hair - but never before now, before he came in, the man smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work. — Ken Kesey

To be just without being mad (and the madder you get the madder you get), to be peaceful without being stupid, to be interested without being compulsive, to be happy without being hysterical ... smoke grass. — Ken Kesey

The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored. — Ken Kesey

If you'll curtail your literary pursuits a moment I'll introduce you to my counterpart and Nemesis; I would be trite and say, 'to my better half,' but I think that phrase indicates some kind of basically equal division, don't you? — Ken Kesey

What we hoped was that we could stop the coming end of the world. — Ken Kesey

Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain. — Ken Kesey

One of the reasons for his drinking, Henry said, was John's mama used to make the whole family get down on their knees and pray like fury everytime John's daddy
Henry's first cousin, I believe
would come home boozed, and John never quite got it straight that they weren't thanking the good Lord for his blessing same as they did at the supper table. So according to Henry booze come to be sort of holy to him and with faith like that John grew up religious as a deacon. — Ken Kesey

That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted. — Ken Kesey

The world news might not be therapeutic. — Ken Kesey

High high in the hills , high in a pine tree bed.
She's tracing the wind with that old hand, counting the clouds with that old chant,
Three geese in a flock
one flew east
one flew west
one flew over the cuckoo's nest — Ken Kesey

I see he had his shorts on under the towel all along.
I think for a fact that she'd rather he'd of been stark naked under that towel than had on those shorts. She's glaring at those big white whales leaping round on his shorts in pure wordless outrage. — Ken Kesey

He knew you can't really be strong until you can see a funny side of things. — Ken Kesey

What makes people so impatient is what I can't figure; all the guy had to do was wait. — Ken Kesey

I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound. — Ken Kesey

The man who seeks revenge digs two graves. — Ken Kesey

Billy here has been talkin' about slicin' his wrists again, so is there seven of you guys who'd like to join him and make it therapeutic? — Ken Kesey

Good writing ain't necessarily good reading. — Ken Kesey

The Grateful Dead are faster than light drive. — Ken Kesey

Alarm, when used for anything less than a fire or an air attack, is certain to muddle the mind, unsettle the senses, and, in most cases, more than double the danger. — Ken Kesey

The way I remember it the tribe got paid some huge amount."
"That's what they said to him. He said, What can you pay for the way a man lives? He said, What can you pay for the way a man is? They didn't understand. — Ken Kesey

Tricker the Squirrel is the best piece I ever wrote. It's intricate. — Ken Kesey

Men are forever eager to press drink upon those they consider their superiors, hoping thereby to eliminate that distinction between them ... And women, when confronted by superiors, substitute for drink the crippling liquor of their sex. — Ken Kesey

A bluetick hound bays out there in the fog, running scared and lost because he can't see. No tracks on the ground but the one's he's making, and he sniffs in every direction with his cold red-rubber nose and picks up no scent but his own fear, fear burning down into him like steam. — Ken Kesey

Don't say it ... I've seen too many loves sundered by too much needless honesty. — Ken Kesey

Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. — Ken Kesey

I used to think we were going to win in the '60s. Nixon went out and I thought we won. — Ken Kesey

When a guy's getting screwed he's got a right to holler. And we've been damn well screwed. — Ken Kesey

A man has to know he had a choice before he can enjoy what he chose. I know now. That a human has to make it with other humans ... before he can make it with himself. — Ken Kesey

Mr. Bibbit, you might warn this Mr. Harding that I'm so crazy I admit to voting for Eisenhower.
Bibbit! You tell Mr. McMurphy I'm so crazy I voted for Eisenhower twice!
And you tell Mr. Harding right back - he puts both hands on the table and leans down, his voice getting low - that I'm so crazy I plan to vote for Eisenhower again this November. — Ken Kesey

What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is? — Ken Kesey

There's no disgrace in failing, lad, Though friends and foes deride; In fact, a failure's not so bad As never having tried. — Ken Kesey

No, that nurse ain't some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. I've seen a thousand of 'em, old and young, men and women. Seen 'em all over the country and in the homes- people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin' you where it hurts the worst. — Ken Kesey

Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking. — Ken Kesey

All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed. — Ken Kesey

But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong ... — Ken Kesey

But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that. — Ken Kesey

To Vik Lovell who told me dragons did not exist, then led me to their lairs ... — Ken Kesey

I will be a sonofabitch if he ain't in here at eleven-thirty at night, fartin' around in the dark with a pair of scissors and a paper sack. — Ken Kesey

The Republican consciousness has no integrity and it falls apart once you check it out. If you're a Christian, why would you want to fry this dude? — Ken Kesey

All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down. — Ken Kesey

When you love someone it is forever, or it was never really love at all. — Ken Kesey

This world ... belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf is the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn't challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it? — Ken Kesey

She likes a rigged game. — Ken Kesey

Okay, stand outa the way. Sometimes when I go to exertin' myself I use up all the air nearby and grown men faint from suffocation. Stand back. There's liable to be crackin' cement and flying steel. Get the women and kids someplace safe. Stand back ... — Ken Kesey

The river split for the jump of a red-gilled silver salmon, then circled to mark the spot where it fell. Spoonbills shoveled at the crimson mud in the shallows, and dowitchers jumped from cattail to cattail, frantically crying "Kleek! Kleek!" as though the thin reeds were as hot as the pokers they resembled. — Ken Kesey

To hell with that. A man goin' fishing with two whores from Portland don't have to take that crap. — Ken Kesey

Ritual is necessary for us to know anything. — Ken Kesey

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case. — Ken Kesey

Look ... Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow. Truth doesn't run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface. So don't sweat it. For focus simply move a few inches back or forward. And once more ... look. — Ken Kesey

Whoever comes in the door is usually disappointing, but there is always a chance otherwise. And when a key hits the lock, all the heads come up like there's strings on them. — Ken Kesey

She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it. — Ken Kesey

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'. — Ken Kesey

We made love. How pedestrian the words look-trite, worn, practically featureless with use-but how can one better describe that which happens when it happens? That creation? That magic blending? I might say we became figures in a mesmerized dance before the rocking talisman of the moon, starting slow, so slow ... a pair of feathers drifting through clear liquid substance of sky ... gradually accelerating, faster and faster and finally into photon existence of pure light ... as my whole straining body burst like fluid electricity into hers. — Ken Kesey

They're out there. First line of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. — Ken Kesey

One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or ten years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viny jungles toward untold wonders? That's what you wanted to write about, about what you didn't know. So. What mysterious time and place don't we know?
[Remember This: Write What You Don't Know (New York Times Book Review, December 31, 1989)] — Ken Kesey

I've thought of everything, know what I mean? — Ken Kesey

She asked if we were calm enough for her to take off the cuffs, and McMurphy nodded. He had slumped over with his head hung and his elbows between his knees and looked completely exhausted
it hadn't occurred to me that it was just as hard for him to stand straight as it was for me. — Ken Kesey

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye. — Ken Kesey

You can make a mark across the night with the tip of an embered stick, and you can actually see it fixed in its finity. You can be absolutely sure of its treacherous impermanence. And that is all. — Ken Kesey

If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite. — Ken Kesey

You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You're not crazy the way they think. Yes ... I see ... — Ken Kesey

The '60s aren't over; they won't be over until the Fat Lady gets high. — Ken Kesey

I could now (possibly) go back and restretch those shrunken hours, flake the images separate, arrange them in accurate chronological order, (possibly; with will-power, patience, and the proper chemicals) but being accurate is not necessarily being honest ... Nor is chronological reporting by any means always the most truthful (each camera has its own veracity) especially when, in all good faith, one cannot truthfully claim to remember what happened accurately ... — Ken Kesey

Loved. You can't use it in the past tense. Death does not stop that love at all. — Ken Kesey

Because sometimes the only way to keep from losing everything is to give everything up. Because sometimes strength must for the sake of winning give in to
— Ken Kesey

They are in contact on a high-voltage wavelength of hate ... — Ken Kesey

It's fogging a little, but I won't slip off and hide in it. No ... never again ... — Ken Kesey

He's the sort of guy that gets a laugh out of people. — Ken Kesey

Always stay in your own movie. — Ken Kesey

Win or lose, the crows always laughed
the hard, old jaded laughter that came of looking at the world with a black and practiced eye. From the less skillful the laugh might have hinted of despair, or silliness, like the magpies', but the crows were masters of the wry outlook, and Viv never heard them but what she followed their expert lead and laughed along
they knew the secret of black, that it could not be made blacker, and if neither could it be made lighter, it could still be made funnier. — Ken Kesey

I can't do nothing for you either, Billy. You know that. None of us can. You got to understand that as soon as a man goes to help somebody, he leaves himself wide open. He has to be cagey, Billy, you should know that as well as anyone. What could I do? I can't fix your stuttering. I can't wipe the razorblade scars off your wrists or the cigarette burns off the back of your hands. I can't give you a new mother. And as far as the nurse riding you like this, rubbing your nose in your weakness till what little dignity you got left is gone and you shrink up to nothing from humiliation, I can't do anything about that, either. — Ken Kesey

I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary." — Ken Kesey

The same old rain, and, if not welcomed, at least accepted - an old gray aunt who came to visit every winter and stayed till spring. You learn to live with her. You learn to reconcile yourself to the little inconveniences and not get annoyed. You remember she is seldom angry or vicious and nothing to get in a stew about, and if she is a bore and stays overlong you can train yourself not to notice her, or at least not to stew about her. Which — Ken Kesey

They can't tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed. — Ken Kesey

It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world ... by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves. — Ken Kesey

I think apparatus burned out all over the ward trying to adjust to her come busting in like she did-took electronic readings on her and calculated they weren't built to handle something like this on the ward, and just burned out, like machines committing suicide. — Ken Kesey

You might hide in some Freudian jungle most of your miserable life, baying at the moon and shouting curses at God, but at the end, right down there at the damned end when it counts ... you would sure as anything clear up just enough to realize the moon you have spent so many years baying at is nothing but the light globe up there on the ceiling, and God is just something placed in your bureau drawer by the Gideon Society. Yes, I sighed again, in the long run insanity would be the same old coldhearted drag of too solid flesh, too many slings and arrows, and too much outrageous fortune. — Ken Kesey

You, and in fact quite a lot of your generation, have in some way been exiled from that particular sanctuary. It's become almost impossible for someone to "go mad" in the classical sense. At one time people conveniently "went mad" and were never heard from again. Like a character in a romantic novel. But now you are too hip to yourself on a psychological level. You all are too intimate with too many of the symptoms of insanity to be caught completely off your guard. — Ken Kesey

I forget sometimes what laughter can do. — Ken Kesey

You get your visions through whatever gate you're granted. — Ken Kesey

Sometimes I looked at them and sometimes they looked at me, but rarely did we look at one another. — Ken Kesey

Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys ... — Ken Kesey

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental. — Ken Kesey

But the new guy is different, and the Acutes can see it, different from anybody been coming on this ward for the past ten years, different from anybody they ever met outside. He's just as vulnerable, maybe, but the Combine didn't get him. — Ken Kesey

The most work he did on [the urinals] was to run a brush once or twice apiece, singing some song as loud as he could in time to the swishing brush; then he'd splash in some Clorox and he'd be through ... And when the Big Nurse ... came in to check McMurphy's cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, "Why, this is an outrage ... an outrage ... " at every bowl. McMurphy sidled right along beside her, winking down his nose and saying in answer, "No; that's a toilet bowl ... a TOILET bowl. — Ken Kesey

When we first broke into that forbidden box in the other dimension, we knew we had discovered something as surprising and powerful as the New World when Columbus came stumbling onto it. — Ken Kesey

The best of all possible cages.' Ben stepped back to regard the job with a sad smile. 'What more can one ask? — Ken Kesey

I'd think, maybe he truly is something extraordinary. He's what he is, that's it. Maybe that makes him strong enough, being what he is. — Ken Kesey

When I die pin me up against the sky. — Ken Kesey

But the more I read ... after awhile ... I begin to find they were all writing about the same thing, this same dull old here-today-gone-tomorrow scene ... Shakespeare, Milton, Matthew Arnold, even Baudelaire, even this cat whoever he was that wrote Beowulf ... the same scene for the same reasons and to the same end, whether it was Dante with his pit or Baudelaire with his pot ... the same dull old scene ... — Ken Kesey

The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it. — Ken Kesey