Cuckoo's Nest Quotes & Sayings

What we've got here is a lunatic genius ghost-in-the-computer monorail that likes riddles and goes faster than the speed of sound. Welcome to the fantasy version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. — Stephen King

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

Then the weeks rolled by in a sinister psych ward haze filled with white-coated orderlies and rocking whack-job patients torn straight from some old Jack Nicholson film, all anti-psychotic meds and padded lonely cells ... — Shannon Celebi

What's going on in your backyard?" He heard her chair creak. "Mr. Bluebird's nowhere in sight. He must be out hunting for food. Mrs. Bluebird is incubating her eggs." "They're married?" "Of course." "How do you know?" "Because . . . they're, you know, they're having a family." "Did Audubon's publication tell you birds who nest are married?" "I'll have you know, sir, bluebirds mate for life." "They do?" "They do." "Well, then. I stand corrected." Across the room a pair of carved cuckoo birds in an ornate clock poked out to announce the quarter hour. "Are cuckoo birds monogamous?" "Mostly." "In that case, Mr. and Mrs. Cuckoo say hello. — Deeanne Gist

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

I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love his every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don't know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it kind of stuck with me. — Robert Pattinson

services as a tree trimmer.92 In the fall of 1975, while still promoting Cuckoo's Nest, Nicholson played a very small part in his pal Sam Spiegel's production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon, based on the life of MGM wonder boy Irving Thalberg, who made Metro the dominant — Edward Douglas

I had those kind of parents where I watched all of these very sophisticated movies: 'Five Easy Pieces', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' — Sam Rockwell

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

They're out there...One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest — 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

The only walls that talk, are the white ones. — Anthony Liccione

She's cuckoo, laying her egg in my nest. — Paula Hawkins

When I was thirteen, I had a nervous breakdown, and I was put into this grown-up mental hospital with all these 50-, 60-year-old men and women. This big, Victorian mental house. There were like five boys in there, all my age, looked after by this woman who was 22 or 23. And it was like "Empire of the Sun" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"-type of arrangement where you've got this young boy overcoming and becoming heroic in the face of this awful place. — Duncan Roy

I never really set out to research any of these stories. I try to lead an interesting life though. I guess the closest I came to research was when I applied to work at the state mental institution in Austin, TX. I wanted to work the night shift like Ken Kesey did when he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I thought that might inspire me to write a book that great. — Arthur Bradford

I loved the movie theater so I always saw a lot of movies. And then there was a play, I saw in the local paper, they were having auditions for a play of a book I had read. Which was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. So I said, "oh, I've read this, so I'm perfect for the part of the lead." His name is escaping me. — Ed O'Neill

If you say you've had a nervous breakdown or things aren't right mentally, people run away from you. They think you're from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,' you know. — Frank Bruno

The breed is more than the pasture. As you know, the cuckoo lays her eggs in any bird's nest; it may be hatched among blackbirds or robins or thrushes, but it is always a cuckoo ... a man cannot deliver himself from his ancestors. — Amelia Barr

I often think that perhaps there is only a limited amount of memory going about the world, and that when it wants to live again, it steals its nest, like a cuckoo. — Rachel Ferguson

I love '30 Rock' because Tina Fey allows me to fly over the cuckoo nest once a week. — Tracy Morgan

I don't seem able to get it straight in my mind.... — Ken Kesey

Jenny couldn't believe herself a multiple. She was a mother, a nurse, not that screwball who appeared on the screen like some dysfunctional figment of her imagination trying to find a life. Still, she was coming to a realization that accepting who she was would be the jailer's key to liberate her from this cuckoo's nest. — Judy Byington

In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of. — Peter Mullan

Owls hoot in B flat, cuckoos in D, but the water ousel sings in the voice of the stream. She builds her nest back of the waterfalls so the water is a lullaby to the little ones. Must be where they learn it. — Karen Joy Fowler

You can't write a story about a mental hospital in the United States without facing the grand example of 'Cuckoo's Nest.' — Victor LaValle

What's the first image that comes to mind when you think of a mental hospital? Jack Nicholson in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' right? We need to change that perception, and places like this one are doing that. — Deborah Norville

He knows that there's no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who's trying to make it hard for you than by acting like you're not bothered. — Ken Kesey

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' which my father had tried to get made for six, seven years, and I for four, was turned down by every studio. Every studio in the world had passed on it. — Michael Douglas

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is a movie that I just find flawless. Jack Nicholson ... I just saw 'The Shining' again the other day; he's so brilliant. He's such a brilliant actor, just unbelievable. — Michael Biehn

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

The cuckoo bird," she said, "You see, cuckoos are parasites. THey lay their eggs in in other birds' nests. Whhen the egg hatches, the baby cuckoopushes the other birds out of the nest. THe poor parent birds work to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places.'
Enormous?' said Jace. 'Did you just call me fat?'
It was an analogy.'
I am not fat. — Cassandra Clare

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in the nurse's office? I know it'd be a tight fit, but it would be sort of perfect. — Robyn Schneider

When I was seven, I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with my mom. When Jack Nicholson was strapped to the table getting electroshock treatment, my mom burst into tears. She said it reminded her of her life, and I was stunned, because I didn't know my mom had been nominated for an Oscar. — Christopher Titus

I bought the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I paid to have it made into a play and I played in it for six months. I came back and I tried to make it into a movie, without success. — Kirk Douglas

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