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Portrait of Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey

(1935–2001) Writer United States

295 quotes in 865 categories

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Ken Kesey was a writer from the United States, best known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Quick Facts About Ken Kesey

Born: September 17, 1935
Died: November 10, 2001
Nationality: United States
Profession: Writer
Notable works: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Known for: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion

About Ken Kesey

Kenneth Elton Kesey, known as Ken Kesey, was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He described himself as a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, reflecting his role in two major cultural movements.

Quotes by Ken Kesey · Page 3

Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

Comedy

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

Inspirational

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

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“Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail”

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

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

Honesty

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

Black-humour

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

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

Fish

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

Comedy

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“I will be a sonofabitch if he ain't in here at eleven-thirty at night, fartin' around in the dark with a pair…

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I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."

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“Alarm, when used for anything less than a fire or an air attack, is certain to muddle the mind, unsettle the senses,…

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“Whoever comes in the door is usually disappointing, but there is always a chance otherwise. And when a key hits the lock,…

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“We can count how many seeds are in the apple, but not how many apples are in the seed.”

Apples

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The raw materials of reality without the glue of time are materials adrift and reality is as meaningless as the balsa parts…

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High high in the hills , high in a pine tree bed. She's tracing the wind with that old hand, counting the…

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If you've got love in your heart, whatever you do from that moment out is likely to be right. If you've got…

Heart

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“Those who had been in on the night started telling about it with a kind of quiet pride and wonder, the way…

Life truths

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“Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep…

Comedy

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“It's fall coming, I kept thinking, fall coming; just like that was the strangest thing ever happened. Fall. Right outside here it…

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“If you’ll curtail your literary pursuits a moment I’ll introduce you to my counterpart and Nemesis; I would be trite and say,…

Better half

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I've never seen crack or a lot of these new drugs. Don't know anything about them. I don't know what they do…

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“It wasn't the practices, I don't think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at…

Guilt

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“She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically…

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Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of…

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“Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of…

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You, and in fact quite a lot of your generation, have in some way been exiled from that particular sanctuary. It's become…

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“he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there’s nothing funny going on. But it’s not the way that…

Laugh

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“Down through the druid wood I saw Wildman join with Cleaver Creek, put on weight, exchange his lean and hungry look for…

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No, that nurse ain't some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. I've seen a thousand of 'em, old…

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Luckily, I remembered something Malcolm Cowley had taught us at Stanford - perhaps the most important lesson a writing class (not a…

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

Giving

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

Being strong

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

Escapism

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

Compassion

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Memory whispers someplace in that jumbled machinery.

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There've been a lot more people hurt on astro-turf than grass.

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Now, you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus.

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

Community

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Ken Kesey by topic

Time (23) Thinking (19) Comedy (19) Inspirational (18) Life (17) Men (16) Love (16) People (14) Truth (12) World (11) Psychology (11) Laughter (10) Laugh (10)