Ken Kesey: Quotes about thinking

Ken Kesey was novelist. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Ken Kesey: 206   quotes 6   likes

“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

People , Way , Thinking

“You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn't like a con-con-vertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you're so b-big and so tough! Well, I'm not big and tough.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 22

People , Girl , Thinking

“We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.”

Ken Kesey

Source: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Ch. 11: The Unspoken Thing
Context: We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

Thinking , Past

“I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind.”

Ken Kesey

As quoted in the BBC documentary The Beyond Within: The Rise and Fall of LSD (1987)
Context: I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it's so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it? Because they're afraid that there's more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they're afraid to go in, and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control.

Way , Thinking

“I didn’t know what to think and she didn’t either, but I was glad she came up to me.”

Ken Kesey

The Paris Review interview (1994)
Context: I was performing The Sea Lion in the Newport Performing Arts Center. Afterwards a white-haired old woman approached me and said, Hey, you remember me? I looked her over, and I knew I remembered her, but had no idea who she was. She said, Lois. It still didn’t click. She said, Lois Learned, Big Nurse, and I thought, Oh my God. She was a volunteer at Newport, long since retired from the nursing business. This was the nurse on the ward I worked on at the Menlo Park hospital. I didn’t know what to think and she didn’t either, but I was glad she came up to me. I felt there was a lesson in it, the same one I had tried to teach Hollywood. She’s not the villain. She might be the minion of the villain, but she’s really just a big old tough ex-army nurse who is trying to do the best she can according to the rules that she has been given. She worked for the villain and believed in the villain, but she ain’t the villain.

Thinking

“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?”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“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.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“I don't think you fully understand the public, my friend; in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Way , Understanding , Thinking , Country

“His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift.

But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Secret , Thinking

“There's something about what we're doing, [which] is that we're meant to lose… every time! We make these foires, write these books and perform this music, but the big juggernaut of civilization continues and we've been kind of brushed to the side, but I think all through history there's been these kind of divine losers that just take a deep breath and go ahead—knowing that society's not going to understand it—and not even caring, because they're having a good time.”

Ken Kesey

Magic Trip, (2011)

Books , Music , History , Understanding

“When people ask me what I think is my best work, it's the bus. There're lots of books, but there's only one bus.”

Ken Kesey

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

People , Books , Thinking

“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

Truth , Thinking