Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.
Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
To hell with facts! We need stories!
People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.
The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths.
Ken, on a bus trip heading east, stopped in Yellowstone and saw a sign that said "Beware of Bear" and said : This used to mean be aware of the bear. But now, it means "be afraid of the bear."
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.
Always stay in your own movie.
You're either on the bus or off the bus.
... 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. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.
To hell with facts! We need stories!
Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored.
When you're around the whole Dead scene, they're there as a tribal thing; they're there as part of a rendezvous and a pow-wow.
The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.
Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.
The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.
He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.
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.
You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.
Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.
The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.
Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.
The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.
He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.
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.
You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.
Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.
---o0o---
Really nice collection of things from Kesey, and pictures too :-)
ReplyDeleteSitting in front of Cody's Bookstore 1966 on Telegraph Ave near University of California up drove the dayglo bus Further. There was somber mood in the air as Berkeley radicals were planning next anti War demonstrations in when out jumped Ken n Cassady dressed like cowboys 🤠n Indians both holding toy guns. Approaching people w pistols pointing them n sayong 'Bang bang you're dead!'. At 14yrs old all I could think was who are these clowns 🤡, get a life and try n do better street theater, the people weren't buying it. It was sad really as their toy plastic guns seemed to melt, Neil n Kesey looked at each other bewildered w wilted guns, got back on the bus quietly heads bowed n drove out of there, never to return to Berkeley again! ((there's a follow up story how they stopped off at a bar in Oakland to buy Neil more beer, that guy was totally bonkers berserk, not long for the world I thought...)
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