Ken Kesey: Trending quotes

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Ken Kesey: 206 quotes6 likes

“Once upon a time a young man of American background thought he had discovered the Great Secret, the Skeleton Key to the Cosmos, the Absolute Answer to the Age Old Question asked by every Wizard, and Alchemist and Mystic that ever peered curiously into the Perplexing Heavens, by every Doctor and Scientist and Explorer that ever wondered about the Winding Ways of this world, by every Philosopher and Holyman and Politician that ever listened for the Mysterious Song beneath the beat of the Human Heart… the answer to "What Makes It All Go?"”

Ken Kesey book Kesey's Garage Sale

Kesey's Garage Sale (1973)

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

Ken Kesey book Sometimes a Great Notion

Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) First lines

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

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 7

“What worries me, Billy," she said — I could hear the change in her voice — "is how your mother is going to take this.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 29

“I have known a lot of people to go down and out — they kill themselves with alcohol or downers. But I've never known anybody to go up and out.”

Ken Kesey

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

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

Ken Kesey

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

“He gave a cry. At the last, falling backward, his face appearing to us for a second upside down before he was smothered on the floor by a pile of white uniforms, he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance, that if you ever trailed coon or cougar or lynx is like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care any more about anything but himself and his dying.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 29

“I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.”

Ken Kesey

Source: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Ch. 1 : Black Shiny FBI Shoes

“LSD lets you in on something. When you're tripping, the idea of race disappears; the idea of sex disappears; you don't even know what species you are sometimes. And I don't know of anybody who hasn't come back from that being more humane, more thoughtful, more understanding.”

Ken Kesey

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

“You can't trust the quality any more…”

Ken Kesey

On why he seldom took LSD in his later years.
Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

“NEVER GIVE A INCH!”

Ken Kesey book Sometimes a Great Notion

Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)

“I watched and tried to figure out what he would have done. I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn't have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"Chief, in Ch. 29
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)

“It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 1

“But just as soon as we got to the pool he said he did wish something mighta been done, though, and dove into the water.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 18

“One flew east, One flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

A children's folk rhyme quoted in the front pages of the book.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)

“I thought for a minute there I saw her whipped. Maybe I did. But I see now that it don't make any difference…. To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 9

“Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don't look so crazy to me.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 1

“You can't bomb for a humane reason. What we should do is just Mother Teresa them to death with love. It's that old hippie nonsense but it's still the best stuff there is.”

Ken Kesey

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

“The Grateful Dead are faster than light drive.”

Ken Kesey

Inside cover of "The Grateful Dead" LP (1967)

“They're out there.
Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

First lines, Ch. 1
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)