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He knows that there's no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who's trying to make it hard for you than by acting like you're not bothered.
Ken Kesey
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You study literature because you're a scholar of what's fair. It's just a way of learning how to be what we want to be. We go to concerts to hear a piece by Bach not because we want to be intellectuals or scholars or students of Bach, but because the music is going to help us keep our moral compass needle clean.
Ken Kesey
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What keeps us from being monsters are the great artists who teach us to love.
Ken Kesey
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The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.
Ken Kesey
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Alongside the statement about one man's poison being another man's high, one might as well add that one man's saint can be another man's sore and one man's hero can turn out to be that man's biggest hangup.
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The reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out.
Ken Kesey
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Men are forever eager to press drink upon those they consider their superiors, hoping thereby to eliminate that distinction between them.... And women, when confronted by superiors, substitute for drink the crippling liquor of their sex.
Ken Kesey
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There's shames a man can never reason away, though he looks back and piles up reasons over them forty dozen deep. And maybe those are the shames a man never should reason away.
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What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is?
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You can't really separate the mask and the look from the story and the performance. Just hanging a mask on the wall makes it a piece of art in the museum, but if you put it on and use it as part of a story, then the story comes alive; the mask comes alive.
Ken Kesey
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Jack London had class. He wasn't a very good writer, but he had tremendous class. And nobody had more class than Melville. To do what he did in Moby-Dick, to tell a story and to risk putting so much material into it. If you could weigh a book, I don't know any book that would be more full.
Ken Kesey
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Almost every writer I know drinks to ease the burden of being out on the cliffs, so to speak. But writing under the influence of drugs is a little like a plumber trying to fix the pipes without being able to work the wrench.
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It's impossible for me to write on LSD—there are more important things to think about. Hunter Thompson can do it, but I can't. It's like diving down to look at coral reefs. You can't write about what you've seen until you're back up in the boat.
Ken Kesey
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This is just shit. It's happening. No blame. Happening and on the rise it would appear. What can we do to delay it? Probably zilch. To stop it? Likely less. But to survive it? Now that sounds more promising. There is evidence of bad shit having been survived before. Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: "When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try paint picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it." So Twister is my try.
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This world… belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak.
Ken Kesey
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More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear face to face.
Ken Kesey
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Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail. It is the deepest faith we have, and the unbeliever- the blasphemer, the dissenter- will stimulate in us the most righteous of furies.
Ken Kesey
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One flew east, One flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
Ken Kesey
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Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn't it?
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What I always wanted to be was a magician... My real upbringing when I was a teenager was doing magic shows, all over the state, with my father and brothers. Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it. And writing is essentially a trick.
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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
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I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it.... I'm tired.
Ken Kesey
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Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don't look so crazy to me.
Ken Kesey
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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.
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To Vik Lovell who told me dragons did not exist, then led me to their lairs...
Ken Kesey
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Ken Kesey
Born:
September 17, 1935
Died:
November 10, 2001
(aged 66)
Bio:
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
Known for:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)
Sailor Song (1992)
Demon Box (1986)
Last Go Round (1994)
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