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2188759
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To hell with that. A man goin' fishing with two whores from Portland don't have to take that crap.
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Ken Kesey |
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bb78890
|
Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
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Ken Kesey |
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cfbaeaa
|
It wasn't the practices, I don't think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me--and the great voice of millions chanting, 'Shame. Shame. Shame.' It's society's way of dealing with someone different.
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Ken Kesey |
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11766d6
|
Memory whispers someplace in that jumbled machinery.
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Ken Kesey |
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23038e8
|
All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed.
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Ken Kesey |
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25808a2
|
But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong. . .
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Ken Kesey |
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c6df4eb
|
What a Life: Give some of us pills to stop a fit, give the rest shock to start one.
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pills
shock-therapy
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Ken Kesey |
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2e5875d
|
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..
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Ken Kesey |
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ab9a935
|
The story is told that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. 'Wait, Joe, where are you going? What did ol' Santa bring you?' According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. 'Brought me a bran'-new pony but he got away. I'll catch 'em if I hurry.' And ever since then it seemed that..
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Ken Kesey |
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01eaa7e
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And then some guy wandering as lost as you would all of a sudden be right before your eyes, his face bigger and clearer than you ever saw a man's face before in your life. Your eyes were working so hard to see in that fog that when something did come in sight every detail was ten times as clear as usual, so clear both of you had to look away. When a man showed up you didn't want to look at his face and he didn't want to look at yours, becau..
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one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest
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Ken Kesey |
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d076948
|
I been away a long time.
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Ken Kesey |
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b2cdf35
|
Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of what has passed and the first of what will come, but is more--let me see--more like a single point plucked on a single strand of a vast spider web of winds, setting the whole scene atingle. That way; it overlaps...As prehistoric ferns grow from bathtub planters. As a shiny new ax, taking a swing at somebody's next year's split..
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Ken Kesey |
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3ae916c
|
One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
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Ken Kesey |
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ab406e2
|
I'd think, That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me then; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted. It don't seem like I ever have been me.
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Ken Kesey |
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15939d4
|
I'd think, maybe he truly is something extraordinary. He's what he is, that's it. Maybe that makes him strong enough, being what he is.
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inspirational
strength
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Ken Kesey |
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0524513
|
Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail
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Ken Kesey |
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a6e7c32
|
You get your visions through whatever gate you're granted.
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Ken Kesey |
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d1de715
|
He was in his chair in the corner, resting a second before he came out for the next round -- in a long line of next rounds. The thing he was fighting, you couldn't whip it for good. All you could do was keep on whipping it, till you couldn't come out anymore and somebody else had to take your place.
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Ken Kesey |
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4420f39
|
The most work he did on [the urinals] was to run a brush once or twice apiece, singing some song as loud as he could in time to the swishing brush; then he'd splash in some Clorox and he'd be through. ... And when the Big Nurse...came in to check McMurphy's cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, "Why, this is an outrage... ..
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madness
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Ken Kesey |
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ccab1bb
|
You're just a young kid. What are you doin' here? You oughta be out in a convertible, why... bird-doggin' chicks and bangin' beaver. What are ya doin' here, for Christ's sake? What's funny about that? Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothin' but complain about how you can't stand it in this place here and then you haven't got the guts just to walk out!
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Ken Kesey |
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1569e9e
|
Colonel Matterson reading from wrinkled scripture of that long yellow hand: The flag is America. America is the plum. The peach. The watermelon. America is the gumdrop. The pumpkin seed. America is television. Now, the cross is Mexico. Mexico is the walnut. The hazelnut. The acorn. Mexico is the rainbow. The rainbow is wooden. Mexico is wooden. Now, the green sheep is Canada Canada is the fir tree. The wheat field. The calendar. The night ..
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Ken Kesey |
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3e74b17
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Mr. Bibbit, you might warn this Mr. Harding that I'm so crazy I admit to voting for Eisenhower. Bibbit! You tell Mr. McMurphy I'm so crazy I voted for Eisenhower twice! And you tell Mr. Harding right back -- he puts both hands on the table and leans down, his voice getting low -- that I'm so crazy I plan to vote for Eisenhower again this November.
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Ken Kesey |
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1d7cb52
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The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only..
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Ken Kesey |
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d5c92d6
|
Then--as he was talking--a set of tail-lights going past lit up McMurphy's face, and the windshield reflected an expression that was allowed only because he figured it'd be too dark for anybody in the car to see, dreadfully tired and strained and frantic, like there wasn't enough time left for something he had to do...
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Ken Kesey |
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edfb87d
|
Cafe Owners are more frustrated than the common laborer," Draeger writes. "The common laborer answers only to the foreman; the cafe owner answers to every patron who stops in"
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cafe
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Ken Kesey |
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4c9a827
|
It's the truth, even if it didn't happen... ...if they don't exist, how can a man see them?
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wisdom
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Ken Kesey |
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cfadbdf
|
He's got hands so long and white and dainty I think they carved each other out of soap, and sometimes they get loose and glide around in front of him free as two white birds until he notices them and traps them between his knees; it bothers him that he's got pretty hands.
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Ken Kesey |
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28cc7b9
|
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 ..
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cosmetics
humor
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Ken Kesey |
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94d7653
|
No one's ever dared come out and say it before, but there's not a man among us that doesn't think it, that doesn't feel just as you do about her and the whole business - feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul.
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Ken Kesey |
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332c220
|
Then the trembling starts to get worse. This must be how they begin, he thinks. Freak-outs. Breakdowns. Crack-ups. Eventually shut-ins and finally cross-offs. But first the cover-up . . .
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Ken Kesey |
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6958b24
|
Society is what decides who's sane and who isn't, so you got to measure up.
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society
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Ken Kesey |
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18fb8ab
|
Marvelous wonders don't have to happen of a sudden, the way they do in the Arabian Nights. They can also take a long time, like crystals growing, or minds changing, or leaves turning. The trick is to keep an eye peeled, so they don't slip by unappreciated.
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Ken Kesey |
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6959a8b
|
The same old rain, and, if not welcomed, at least accepted--an old gray aunt who came to visit every winter and stayed till spring. You learn to live with her. You learn to reconcile yourself to the little inconveniences and not get annoyed. You remember she is seldom angry or vicious and nothing to get in a stew about, and if she is a bore and stays overlong you can train yourself not to notice her, or at least not to stew about her. Which
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Ken Kesey |
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d082c28
|
There's no doubt in my mind that McMurphy's won, but I'm not sure what.
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Ken Kesey |
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00f71dd
|
He's got hands so long and white and dainty I think they carved each other out of soap.
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Ken Kesey |
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074bed7
|
I think apparatus burned out all over the ward trying to adjust to her come busting in like she did-took electronic readings on her and calculated they weren't built to handle something like this on the ward, and just burned out, like machines committing suicide.
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observation
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Ken Kesey |
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e236544
|
It's fogging a little, but I won't slip off and hide in it. No...never again...
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Ken Kesey |
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b1420d2
|
Does the Spearmint lose its flavor on the bedpost over night?
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Ken Kesey |
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1e1955e
|
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.
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fall
scents
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Ken Kesey |
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3cb88a5
|
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 m..
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moon
stars
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Ken Kesey |
|
265dd65
|
you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep in balance." [Chief Bromden]"
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Ken Kesey |
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4c48c74
|
You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You're not crazy the way they think. Yes...I see...
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ken-kesey
one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest
|
Ken Kesey |
|
3a6d116
|
You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane.
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Ken Kesey |
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b51a7dd
|
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 ..
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hurt
laughing
laughter
pain
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Ken Kesey |