329 Quotes by Ken Kesey

Things you think you’re saying for the first time ever, have been said better before by Shakespeare, though they may need saying again.

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.

Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren’t for the cartoon figures being real guys...

The sun was prying up the clouds and lighting the brick front of the hospital rose red. A thin breeze worked at sawing what leaves were left from the oak trees, stacking them neatly agains the wire cyclone fence. There were little brown birds occasionally on the fence: when a puff of leaves would hit the fence the birds would fly off with the wind. It looked at first like the leaves were hitting the fence and turning into birds and flying away.

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.

I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

If somebody’d of come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they’d of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons.

There are going to be times when we can’t wait for somebody. Now, you’re either on the bus or off the bus.

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