Quotes by Ken Kesey

About Ken Kesey:

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

I don't seem able to get it straight in my mind....

Ken Kesey

turns me on so loud it's like no sound, everybody yelling at me hands over their ears from behind a glass wall, faces working around in talk circles but no sound from the mouths. my sound soaks up all other sound.

Ken Kesey

But I remember one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf, it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.

Ken Kesey

You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

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

All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.

Ken Kesey

I discovered at an early age that I was - shall we be kina and say different? It's a better, more general word than the other one... I got sick... It was the feeling that the great, deadly pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me - and the g...

Ken Kesey

I discovered at an early age that I was - shall we be kind and say different? It's a better, more general word than the other one... I got sick... It was the feeling that the great, deadly pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me - and the g...

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

I don't think I can give you an answer. Oh, I could give you Freudian reasons with fancy talk, and that would be right as far as it went. But what you want are the reasons for the reasons, and I'm not able to give you those. Not for the others, anywa...

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

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.

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s sti...

Ken Kesey

Tricker the Squirrel is the best piece I ever wrote. It's intricate.

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

Fascism wants Baptism coast to coast.

Ken Kesey

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

Ken Kesey

Author Bio

  • NameKen Kesey
  • Descriptionnovelist
  • BornSeptember 17, 1935
  • DiedNovember 10, 2001
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Essayist
  • WorksOne Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; Sometimes A Great Notion