Ken Kesey quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Ken Kesey on Wise Famous Quotes.

You must go through a winter to understand.

You're either on the bus or off the bus.

Always stay in your own movie.

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

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

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

I was actually going out of the hospital with two whores on a fishing boat; I had to keep saying it over and over to myself to believe it.

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

Allen Ginsberg is a tremendous warrior as time goes by. He's a warrior first and a poet second.

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

Me and Norman Mailer have talked about how hard it is in America to get better. Especially at writing.

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

If grass were legalized, it would help our drug problem enormously.

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

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'.

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

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

He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum

Things you think you're saying for the first time ever, have been said better before by Shakespeare, though they may need saying again.

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

Good writing ain't necessarily good reading.

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

Ritual is necessary for us to know anything.

Rules? PISS ON YOUR FUCKING RULES!

She likes a rigged game.

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

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

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

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

I had to keep on acting deaf if i wanted to hear at all.

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

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.

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

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

I was raised a Christian and was a stone-faced acid head.

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

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

I want to touch him because I'm one of these queers!

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

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

Since we don't know where we're going, we have to stick together in case someone gets there.

Plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom.

More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear face to face.

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.

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.

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

I'll trim you babies like little lambs

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

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

The dead's dead ... get 'em in the ground and look to the live ones.

The walls are white as the white suits, polished clean as a refrigerator door, and the black face and hands seem to float against it like a ghost.

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

There's something about taking a plow and breaking new ground. It gives you energy.

Mostly, I'd just like 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.

They did type me as a horror writer, but I have been able to do all sorts of things within that framework.

Does one ever play Coltrane for the uninitiated without subconsciously hoping for the worst?

But I tried though," he says. "Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?

When I die pin me up against the sky.

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

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

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?

But like always when I try to place my thoughts in the past and hide there, the fear close at hand seeps in through the memory.

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.

There's a lot of people who don't understand the circle crops in England. Pure enigma.

When you're around the whole Dead scene, they're there as a tribal thing; they're there as part of a rendezvous and a pow-wow.

Fascism wants Baptism coast to coast.

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.

The man who seeks revenge digs two graves.

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

I've thought of everything, know what I mean?

Boney Stokes was this oldtime acquaintance of Henry's and figured the best way to pass the time of day was by gradually dying.

I've enjoyed being a famous writer-except that every once in a while you have to write something.

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

I noticed vaguely that I was getting so's I could see
some good in the life around me.

I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower. Oh yeah, well I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower TWICE!

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

... and if I don't have her to where she don't know whether to shit or go blind, the bet is yours.

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

And the redwinged blackbirds sing in the budding greengage plumtree.

The game goes round and round, to the rattle of dice and the shuffle of play money.

There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of.

Living is the purpose of life,
And meaning can be found therein.
I finds thou.
Thou becomes it.
And it begins again.

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

Your trouble is, you keep trying to unscrew the unscrutable.

It is just as much an offense to take offense as it is to give offense.

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

The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.

What a cheery atmosphere, don't you agree?

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

What a Life: Give some of us pills to stop a fit, give the rest shock to start one.

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.

The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.

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

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.

If you're a Conservative, why aren't you behind conserving the land?

A Man Is Known By The Mice He Keeps

He's safe as long as he can laugh, he thinks, and it works pretty fair.

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

You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep in balance. [Chief Bromden]

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