Ken Kesey Quotes

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

What makes me laugh? Richard Nixon always made me laugh.

Satire is fascinating stuff. It's deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it's the only thing that makes any sense.

Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable.

People don't understand that we're not warriors in their cause. We're a group of people that really feel that they want to write jokes about the absurdity that we see in government and the world and all that, and that's it.

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.

Politicians can do more funny things naturally than I can think of to do purposely

The thing about Donald [Trump] is the jokes write themselves. I don't even think of it to be trolling. What he says is the joke.

As a comedian, I think we all look for those areas where the truth diverts from what people are saying. That's why politics is such a rich area for us, because politicians make promises, and they don't keep them, and when we point out the difference, we get the laugh.

Optimism isn't funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. It's exaggeration.

Well what's funny is, again, people say they believed what was going on, but again, Bob's hands are about three times bigger than his feet. So these are very caricatured.

What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

I never wanted to do political satire because it seems too surface to me.

It's great extremes which leads to great drama and great comedy.

You can parody almost anything.

Everything can be satirized.

I'm glad Reagan is president. Of course, I'm a professional comedian.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

Nobody gets irony anymore, as we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, our irony is dead.

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with.

One day there were two out in the ninth, and I hit a pop fly so high that the fans got tired of waiting for it to come down. So they all went home and listened to it drop by turning on the radio.

As you know it is a comedy so everything is a little bit pushed. That's what's funny about this kind of movie is you can laugh about the absurdity, and the bad side of life.

The other day the President said, I know you've had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy?