Quotes by Ken Kesey

He knew you cant really be strong until you can see a funny side of things.

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.

It’s fall coming, I thought, I can smell that sour-molasses smell of silage, clanging the air like a bell – smell like somebody’s been burning oak leaves, left them to smolder overnight because they’re too green.

turns me on so loud its 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.

Loved. You cant use it in the past tense. Death does not stop that love at all.

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

You cant really be strong until you see a funny side to things.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesnt pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

Its time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. Weve reached a certain point, but were not moving any more.

Nowhere else in history has there ever been a flag that stands for the right to burn itself. This is the fractal of our flag. It stands for the right to destroy itself.

The truth doesnt have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.

Theres something about taking a plow and breaking new ground. It gives you energy.

“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 still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”

“When a man showed up you didnt want to look at his face and he didnt want to look at his face and he didnt want to look at yours, because its painful to see somebody so clear that its 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.”

“Wed just shared the last beer and slung the empty can out the window at a stop sign and were just waiting back to get the feel of the day, swimming in that kind of tasty drowsiness that comes over you after a day of going hard at something you enjoy doing -- half sunburned and half drunk and keeping awake only because you wanted to savor the taste as long as you could.”