Ken Kesey Quotes

American novelist (1935–2001)

Add quote

Kenneth Elton Kesey (17 September 1935 – 10 November 2001) was an American writer, most famous for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and as a cultural icon whom some consider a link between the "beat generation" of the 1950s and the "hippies" of the 1960s as a founding member of the Merry Pranksters.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: Kenneth Kesey • Kenneth Elton Kesey • Ken Elton Kesey • Ken E. Kesey • O. U. Levon

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

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.

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.

He couldn't seem to get his teeth into anything. Except books. The things in books was darn near more real to him than the things breathing and eating.

Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range . . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River . . .

He’s got hands so long and white and dainty I think they carved each other out of soap.

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

I'd give something to see that. Mostly, I'd just to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.

I been away a long time.

You can't really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.

Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier.

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.

Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn't it?

. . .sometimes reading the same page over and over, until one sleepy afternoon something clicked, like a lock unlocking, and she saw those printed doors swing open on a vast house of words.

You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself

Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.