Ken Kesey Quotes

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 fa...

For there is always a sanctuary more, a door that can never be forced, a last inviolable stronghold that can never be taken, whatever the attack; your vote can be taken, you name, you innards, or even...

I been away a long time.

I love them but I cannot give myself for them.

In his room Lee wonders how to include all the history that Peters will need to make any sense of the situation.

Marvelous wonders don't have to happen of a sudden, the way they do in the Arabian Nights. They can also take a long time, like crystals growing, or minds changing, or leaves turning. The trick is to...

Nobody can help. And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in. And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and be safe again.

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

Now I don’t know what I love any more. I don’t know where the thing I make-pretend leaves off and the thing that’s really there starts up.

Oregon October, when the fields of timothy and rye-grass stubble are being burned, the sky itself catches fire. Flocks of wrens rush up from the red alder thickets like sparks kicked from a campfire,...

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...

She slides through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her and I see her fingers trail across the polished steel—tip of each finger the same color as her lips. Funny orange. Like th...

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...

The Big Nurse is able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants by just turning one of those dials in the steel door; she takes a notion to hurry things up, she turns the speed up, and those h...

They wouldn't be so cocky if they knew what me and the have going.

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

We have weeks, or months, or even years if need be. Keep in mind that Mr. McMurphy is committed. The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us. Now, if there is nothing else…

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

You’re just a young kid. What are you doin’ here? You oughta be out in a convertible, why… bird-doggin’ chicks and bangin’ beaver. What are ya doin’ here, for Christ’s sake? What’s funny about that? J...

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