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Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey Books

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“Doctor … I’m going mad; the final complete flip, it’s swooping down out of the hills at me!” He had only smiled, condescendingly and therapeutically. “No, Leland, not you. You, and in fact quite a lot of your generation, have in some way been exiled from that particular sanctuary. It’s become almost impossible for you to ‘go mad’ in the classical sense. At one time people conveniently ‘went mad’ and were never heard from again. Like a character in a romantic novel. But now”—And I think he even went so far as to yawn—“you are too hip to yourself on a psychological level. You all are too intimate with too many of the symptoms of insanity to be caught completely off your guard. Another thing: all of you have a talent for releasing frustration through clever fantasy. And you, you are the worst of the lot on that score. So … you may be neurotic as hell for the rest of your life, and miserable, maybe even do a short hitch at Bellevue and certainly good for another five years as a paying patient—but I’m afraid never completely out.”

Madness
Book:Sometimes a Great Notion
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“When a man showed up you didn't want to look at his face and he didn't want to look at his face and he didn't want to look at yours, because it's painful to see somebody so clear that it's like looking inside him, but then neither did you want to to look away and lose him completely. You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it may be, or you could relax and lose yourself.”

LifeInspirationalRealityTruthChoiceDecision Making
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
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“I wanted to reach over and touch the place where he was tattooed, to see if he was still alive. He's layin' awful quiet, I told myself, I ought to touch him to see he's still alive... that's a lie. I know he's still alive. That ain't the reason I want to touch him. I want to touch him because he's a man. That's a lie too. There's other men around. I could touch them. I want to touch him because I'm one of these queers! But that's a lie too. That's one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers I'd want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he's who he is.”

LoveTruthEmpathyAdmirationTouch
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
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“I realized I still had my eyes shut. I had shut them when I put my face to the screen, like I was scared to look outside. Now I had to open them. I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. I was off on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. I watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame. I kept awake watching, to see if the moon ever got dimmer or the stars got brighter, till the dew commenced to drift onto my cheeks and I had to pull a blanket over my head.”

StarsMoonLandscape
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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“I can’t do nothing for you either, Billy. You know that. None of us can. You got to understand that as soon as a man goes to help somebody, he leaves himself wide open. He has to be cagey, Billy, you should know that as well as anyone. What could I do? I can’t fix your stuttering. I can’t wipe the razorblade scars off your wrists or the cigarette burns off the back of your hands. I can’t give you a new mother. And as far as the nurse riding you like this, rubbing your nose in your weakness till what little dignity you got left is gone and you shrink up to nothing from humiliation, I can’t do anything about that, either.”

Dignity
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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“That aunt of mine; boy, she used to wear make-up all week long so terrible thick that - well, she started about Wednesday layering it on, and she never washed, and every day she slapped down a new layer. Until Sunday. Then on Sunday she kind of peeled it off to go to church. *** Boy, she was a case; I used to hope she'd skip a Sunday - sleep through to Monday or something - because I knew two weeks' worth of make-up and she'd set up like a statue.”

HumorCosmeticsAunts
Book:Sometimes a Great Notion
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“But me, I know why. I heard him talk to the lifeguard. He’s finally getting cagey, is all. The way Papa finally did when he came to realize that he couldn’t beat that group from town who wanted the government to put in the dam because of the money and the work it would bring, and because it would get rid of the village: Let that tribe of fish Injuns take their sink and their two hundred thousand dollars the government is paying them and go some place else with it! Papa had done the smart thing signing the papers; there wasn’t anything to gain by bucking it. The government would of got it anyhow, sooner or later; this way the tribe would get paid good. It was the smart thing. McMurphy was doing the smart thing. I would see that. He was giving in because it was the smartest thing to do, not because of any of these other reasons the Acutes were making up. He didn’t say so, but I knew and I told myself it was the smart thing to do. I told myself that over and over: It’s safe. Like hiding. it’s the smart thing to do nobody could say and different. I know what he’s doing.”

WinningBeing SmartNative American WisdomNative Americans
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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“One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or ten years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viny jungles toward untold wonders? That's what you wanted to write about, about what you didn't know. So. What mysterious time and place don't we know?" [Remember This: Write What You Don't Know (New York Times Book Review, December 31, 1989)]”

WritingKnowledgeBoundariesCreative ProcessFamiliarityLimitationsDullnessCraftInventiveness
Author:Ken Kesey
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“(Cont.. Página 46) O seu rosto negro, bonito, cintilava ali na minha frente. Fiquei boquiaberto, tentando pensar em alguma maneira de responder. Ficamos juntos, enlaçados daquela maneira durante alguns segundos; então o som da fábrica saltou num arranco, e alguma coisa começou a puxá-la para trás, afastando-a de mim. Um cordão em algum lugar que eu não via se havia prendido naquela saia vermelha florida e a puxava para trás. As unhas dela foram arranhando as minhas mãos e, tão logo ela desfez o contato comigo, seu rosto saiu novamente de foco, tornou-se suave e escorregadio como chocolate derretendo-se atrás daquela neblina de algodão que soprava. Ela riu e girou depressa, deixando que eu visse a perna amarela, quando a saia subiu. Lançou-me uma piscadela de olho por sobre o ombro enquanto corria para sua máquina, onde uma pilha de fibra deslizava da mesa para o chão; ela apanhou tudo e saiu correndo sem barulho pela fileira de máquinas para enfiar as fibra num funil de enchimento; depois, desapareceu no meu ângulo de visão virando num canto. (Página 47) "Todos aqueles fusos bobinando e rodando, e lançadeiras saltando por todo lado, e carretéis fustigando o ar com fios, paredes caiadas e máquinas cinza-aço e moças com saias floridas saltitando para a frente e para trás e a coisa toda tecida como uma tela, com linhas brancas corrediças que prendiam a fábrica, mantendo-a unida - aquilo tudo me marcou e de vez em quando alguma coisa na enfermaria o traz de volta à minha mente Sim. Isto é o que sei.. A enfermaria é uma fábrica da Liga. Serve para reparar os enganos cometidos nas vizinhanças, nas escolas e nas igrejas, isso é o que o hospital é. Quando um produto acaba, volta para a sociedade lá fora - todo reparado e bom como se fosse novo, às vezes melhor do que se fosse novo, traz alegria ao coração da Chefona; algo que entrou deformado, todo diferente, agora é um componente em funcionamento e bem-ajustado, um crédito para todo esquema e uma maravilha para ser observado. Observe-o se esgueirando pela terra com um sorriso, encaixando-se em alguma vizinhançazinha, onde estão escavando valas agora mesmo, por toda a rua, para colocar encanamento para a água da cidade. Ele está contente com isso. Ele finalmente está ajustado ao meio-ambiente...”

SocietyMental IllnessVidaRoutineSociedadePerspectivaAngústiaRotinaPonto De VistaPrensas Sobre A Vida
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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“While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top,spreading his laugh across the water. Laughing at the girl,at the guys, at George,at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He know's there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girl friend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.”

HumorPainHurtLaughingLaughter
Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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“We made love. How pedestrian the words look-trite, worn, practically featureless with use-but how can one better describe that which happens when it happens? That creation? That magic blending? I might say we became figures in a mesmerized dance before the rocking talisman of the moon, starting slow, so slow... a pair of feathers drifting through clear liquid substance of sky... gradually accelerating, faster and faster and finally into photon existence of pure light... as my whole straining body burst like fluid electricity into hers.”

LooksMadeWholeUseBodyLightMightHappensSexExistenceClearMagicSkyFiguresCreationPureMoonStartingFasterSubstancePairsWornElectricityFeathersFluidLiquidDriftingPedestriansTalismansPhotonsMesmerized
Author:Ken Kesey
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