One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Quotes

“He said, What can you pay for the way a man lives? He said, What can you pay for what a man is? They didn't understand.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“I’ve seen a thousand of ‘em, old and young, men and women. Seen ‘em all over the country and in the homes—people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin’ you where it hurts the worst.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“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”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Mõnikord ma unustan, milleks naer on võimeline.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“آنچه چهره انسان آشکار می کند انقدر زیاد است که نمی توان چهره به چهره شدن را تحمل کرد”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Друзья мои, вы слишком громко протестуете, чтобы поверить в ваш протест.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Он знает: надо смеяться над тем, что тебя мучит, иначе не сохранишь равновесия, иначе мир сведет тебя с ума. Он знает, что у жизни есть мучительная сторона; он знает, что палец у меня болит, что грудь у его подруги отбита, что доктор лишился очков, но не позволяет боли заслонить комедию, так же как комедии не позволяет заслонить боль.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“— Это и ему так сказали. Он сказал: сколько вы заплатите за то, как человек живет? Сказал: сколько заплатите человеку за то, что он — это он? Белые не поняли. И наши тоже. Они стояли перед дверью, держали свои чеки и спрашивали у него, что им теперь делать. Просили куда-нибудь вложить для них деньги, или купить ферму, или сказать, куда с этими деньгами деться. Но он уже был маленький. И пьяный. Комбинат сладил с ним. Он всех побеждает. И тебя победит. Не могут они допустить, чтобы гулял по свету такой большой, как папа, если он не ихний. Ты же понимаешь.

— Кажется, да.

— Вот почему нельзя было разбивать окно. Теперь они видят, что ты большой. Теперь они должны тебя обломать.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Hell, are you birds telling me I can't lift that dinky little gizmo?'
'My friend, I don't recall anything about psychopaths being able to move mountains in addition to their other noteworthy assets.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“sound comes out of his mouth like a nail being crowbarred out of a plank of green pine; Eeeee-eee.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“Those who had been in on the night started telling about it with a kind of quiet pride and wonder, the way people tell about seeing a big hotel fire or a dam bursting — very solemn and respectful because the casualties aren’t even counted yet — but the longer the telling went on, the less solemn the fellows got.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“If they want to buy fish they buy them back at the highway; they don’t come to the village because they probably think we still scalp people and burn them around a post. They don’t know some of our people are lawyers in Portland, probably wouldn’t believe it if I told them. In fact, one of my uncles became a real lawyer and Papa says he did it purely to prove he could, when he’d rather poke salmon in the fall than anything. Papa says 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.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“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.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Wieczorem w przeddzień wyprawy leżałem w łóżku, rozmyślając o mojej głuchocie, o latach udawania , że nie słyszę ani słowa, i zastanawiałem się, czy potrafiłbym się zachowywać inaczej. A potem przypomniałem sobie, że to nie ja zacząłem udawać głuchego, to ludzie zaczęli traktować mnie jak durnia, który nie słyszy, nie widzie i nie potrafi wydusić z siebie słowa.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“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, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“It was strange to hear that voice, soft and soothing and warm as a pillow, coming out of a face hard as porcelain.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“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.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“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, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“You’ve—it seems—no other psychiatric history, Mr. McMurry?” “McMurphy, Doc.” “Oh? But I thought—the nurse was saying—” He opens the folder again, fishes out those glasses, looks the record over for another minute before he closes it, and puts his glasses back in his pocket. “Yes. McMurphy. That is correct. I beg your pardon.” “It’s okay, Doc. It was the lady there that started it, made the mistake. I’ve known some people inclined to do that.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“he was dealing he was joking and talking and trying to get the players to laugh along with him. But they were all afraid to loosen up; it’d been too long”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Which one of you claims to be the craziest? Which one is the biggest loony? Who runs these card games”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“that fool Public Relations man who’s always clapping his wet hands together and saying how overjoyed he is that mental hospitals have eliminated all the old-fashioned cruelty”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“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”
― ken kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“It has been often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the fruits of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“We’d just shared the last beer and slung the empty can out the window at a stop sign and were just leaning 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.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“Den Der Marcherer Ude Af Takt Hører En Anden Tromme.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“I let the mop push me back
to the wall and smile and try to foul her equipment up as much as possible by not letting her see my eyes - they can’t tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“Hell of a life. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Puts a man in one confounded bind, I’d say.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Mi lenne itten, ha mindenki akkor állna neki a fogát sikálni, amikor eszébe jut?”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“I still had my own notions. How McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save us from the combine that was networking the land with copper wire and crystal”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest