Ken Kesey Quotes

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's somebody doing something because I pushed them in that direction.

I don't want to be influenced by outside opinion.

You know, you can't make the people do what you want them to do.

I would never wear anything because someone told me to.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

You never want to be forced to do something. But the world around you starts to influence you in ways you never expected.

He can stop me in my tracks, but he can't make me do someting I don't want to

I don't want people to be inspired or offended by what I do. If you determine your behavior by what [other people] want, you're screwed.

When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it's his thinking that you want him to suspend.

There's people trying to tell me what to do, but I'm not like some marketing scam.

The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.

I am not unconscious of the persuasive power exerted by these considerations to drag men along in the current; but I am not at liberty to travel that road.

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.

We must form men so that they can only will what we wish them to will.

I am not a person to be pressured - by anybody or any nation.

I can't manipulate anybody's minds.

How can we choose to selectively follow what we find comfortable and attack anybody who tries to break free from the norms that we choose to set?

There's no reason to assume that my idea of what's better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don't think they know. And I can't see any authority on the horizon that's got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

I'm afraid of a couple things. I'm afraid of getting caught up in other people's expectations, because I feel like that's an ongoing battle.

Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend?

Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.

When we think too much about the opinions of others, we are letting them edit a book God has written.

If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no DESIRE of your own.