Ken Kesey Quotes

You don't plow under the corn because the seed was planted with a neighbor's shovel.

The Haight is just a place; the '60s was a spirit.

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

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?

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

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

Then the trembling starts to get worse. This must be how they begin, he thinks. Freak-outs. Breakdowns. Crack-ups. Eventually shut-ins and finally cross-offs. But first the cover-up . . .

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

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.

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

Ocean, Ocean I'll beat you in the end.

But if they don't exist, how can a man see them?

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

Anesthetized time; nothing moves and everything is at once.

Major part of the Southern California pop scene in the 60s "People think that love is an emotion. Love is good sense."

I been away a long time.

You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane.

Anti-drug fanatics and cops are the criminals - it's like McCarthyism. They need someone to dislike to distract the public from the really important problems.

In any given situation there will always be more dumb people than smart people. We ain't many!

It's the truth, even if it didn't happen......if they don't exist, how can a man see them?

The stars up close to the moon were pale they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon

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.

. . .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.

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

Society is what decides who's sane and who isn't, so you got to measure up.

But I remember one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf, it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.

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

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.

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

Nobody's gonna convince me I can't do something till I try it." -- McMurphy

To hell with facts! We need stories!

He knows that 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

You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to the world from running you plumb crazy

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

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