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We think we’re in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

Ken Kesey

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Ken Kesey
Age: 66 †
Born: 1935
Born: September 17
Died: 2001
Died: November 10
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
La Junta
Colorado
Kenneth Kesey
Kenneth Elton Kesey
Ken Elton Kesey
Ken E. Kesey
O. U. Levon
Movie
Past
Think
Thinking
Aren
Present

More quotes by Ken Kesey

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I've been to too many Dead concerts. There've been smokin' holes where my memory used to be.
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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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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.
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You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself
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The raw materials of reality without the glue of time are materials adrift and reality is as meaningless as the balsa parts of a model airplane scattered to the wind.
Ken Kesey
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It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down to your hips. Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
Ken Kesey
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I've enjoyed being a famous writer-except that every once in a while you have to write something.
Ken Kesey
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See with your ears and hear with your eyes.
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.
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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The job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
Ken Kesey
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The Haight is just a place the '60s was a spirit.
Ken Kesey
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His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift. But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.
Ken Kesey
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There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place — then it won't make a damn.
Ken Kesey
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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.
Ken Kesey
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Loved. You can't use it in the past tense. Death does not stop that love at all.
Ken Kesey
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Of offering more than what I can deliver, I have a bad habit, it is true. But I have to offer more than I can deliver, To be able to deliver what I do.
Ken Kesey
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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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Now, you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus.
Ken Kesey
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She asked if we were calm enough for her to take off the cuffs, and McMurphy nodded. He had slumped over with his head hung and his elbows between his knees and looked completely exhausted--it hadn't occurred to me that it was just as hard for him to stand straight as it was for me.
Ken Kesey