Ken Kesey Quotes

I love the way dates in a text make us think that truth will follow.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

There's a sense in all my novels that nothing is certain.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

You can delay but you can't deny.

Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting.

You know how it's going to end, but instead of spoiling things, that somehow increases your fascination. It's like watching a kid run his electric train faster and faster and waiting for it to derail on one of the curves.

But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.

Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.

I realized that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose-but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!

When something ought to be true then it proves to be a very powerful truth.

NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.

Well, sir, if things are real, they’re there all the time." "Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not quite know what to say.

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

How can you expect me to believe that?""whether you believe it or not does not change the nature of truth

Time puts an end to speculation in opinions, and confirms the laws of nature.

Don't mistake the Russia you want to exist for the Russia that there actually is. Be realistic.

...the sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns, and nobody can lose what is not his.

You think the world is what it looks like in fine weather at noon day; I think it is what it seems like in the early morning when one first wakes from deep sleep.

Belief made no difference to the truth.

In some ways truth is stranger than fiction.

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.