Essayists From The United States

"While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out 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 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 to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain."

"You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn't like a con-con-vertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you're so b-big and so tough! Well, I'm not big and tough."

"Alla you! Quit bugging me, goddammit!"

"But just as soon as we got to the pool he said he did wish something mighta been done, though, and dove into the water."

"Later, hiding in the latrine from the black boys, I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was."

"But I tried though," he says. "Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?"

"I thought for a minute there I saw her whipped. Maybe I did. But I see now that it don't make any difference.... To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that."

"But if they don't exist, how can a man see them?"

"Maybe not you, buddy, but the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing."

"I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it.... I'm tired."

"This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart; something that came in all twisted and different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold."

"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."

"He who marches out of line hears another drum."

"Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don't look so crazy to me."

"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."

"They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them."

"One flew east, One flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest."

"God... your book is beautiful!"

"This is just shit. It's happening. No blame. Happening and on the rise it would appear. What can we do to delay it? Probably zilch. To stop it? Likely less. But to survive it? Now that sounds more promising. There is evidence of bad shit having been survived before. Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: "When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try paint picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it." So Twister is my try."

"Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking, 'cause that's where he works. He knows that area of the mind and the brain, and he knows the difference between the two areas. He's a real master at getting your old wheel squeaking again. … When we first broke into that forbidden box in the other dimension, we knew that we had discovered something as surprising and powerful as the New World when Columbus came stumbling onto it. It is still largely unexplored and uncharted. People like Leary have done the best they can to chart it sort of underground, but the government and the powers do not want this world charted, because it threatens established powers. It always has."

"I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it's so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it? Because they're afraid that there's more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they're afraid to go in, and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control."

"Once upon a time a young man of American background thought he had discovered the Great Secret, the Skeleton Key to the Cosmos, the Absolute Answer to the Age Old Question asked by every Wizard, and Alchemist and Mystic that ever peered curiously into the Perplexing Heavens, by every Doctor and Scientist and Explorer that ever wondered about the Winding Ways of this world, by every Philosopher and Holyman and Politician that ever listened for the Mysterious Song beneath the beat of the Human Heart... the answer to "What Makes It All Go?""

"The Grateful Dead are faster than light drive."

"NEVER GIVE A INCH!"

"Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions. Page 28"

"The good causes of the Left may generally be compared to NASCAR; they offer the diversion of watching things go excitingly around in a circle, getting nowhere. Page 11."

"A society can neither advance nor improve without excess of disposable income. This excess can only be amassed through the productions of goods and services necessary or attractive to the mass. A financial system which allows this leads to inequality; one that does not leads to mass starvation. Page 10."

"The goal of the Left is a government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from government. Page 236."

"Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos...? They're nuts... they used to call in every week [...] Did you see how they were living? [...] The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen."

"A man should BE his job. You are FUCKED at yours."

"April to September it's me, it's no fucking Moss! Due respect... he's an order taker. Talks... oh, talks a good game. But look at the board, and it's me John. It's me."

"You are a shithead, Williamson. If you can't think on your feet you oughta keep your mouth shut."

"I point back in the living room, back to the sideboard. I didn't fucking know there was a sideboard there!"

"Get the chalk! Get the fucking chalk! Put me on the board! Put me on the Cadillac board! Williamson! Pick up the fucking chalk! Hey, Rick I closed em! I closed the cocksucker!"

"What the hell are you? You're a fuckin' secretary. Fuck you. That's my message to ya: fuck you and kiss my ass, and if you don't like it baby I'm going across the street to Jerry Graff, period, fuck you. Now, I want you to put me on the cadillac board and I want two promising leads and I don't want any bullshit and I want them close together because I am going to close them all, and that is all I have to say to you! [flips him off]"

"That's fucked. That's fucked. You don't look at the fucking percentage. You look at the gross."

"Well, to the law, you’re an accessory. Before the fact."

"Cop couldn't find his dick, two hands and a map."

"Fuck the machine? FUCK THE MACHINE! What is this, courtesy class? You're fucked, Rick."

"Anybody that talks to this asshole is a fuckin' asshole."

"Yes, well that's very cute, but you're running this office like a bunch of bullshit."

"You stupid fucking cunt. Williamson! I'm talking to you shithead! You just cost me $6,000. $6,000, and one Cadillac. That's right. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it...asshole? You fucking shit! Where did you learn your trade, you stupid fucking cunt?! You idiot! Whoever told you that you could work with men?! Oh, I'm gonna have your job, shithead. I'm going downtown, I'm going to talk to Mitch and Murray! I'm going to Lemkin! I don't care whose nephew you are...who you know...whose dick you're sucking on, you're going out! I swear to you, you're going out! Anyone in this office lives on his wits. I'm going to be with you in a second. What you are hired for, is to help us. Does that seem clear to you? To HELP us. Not to FUCK US UP! To help men who are going out there to try to earn a living, you fairy. You company man. I'll tell you something else, I hope you ripped the joint off, maybe I can tell our friends here a little something that might help him to catch you. You want to learn the first rule you'd know if you'd ever spent a day in your life? You never open your mouth til you know what the shot is. You fucking child."

"You cheated on your wife? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it. There's an absolute morality? May be. And then what?"

"I find out whose fuckin' cousin you are, I'm gonna go to him and figure out a way to have your ass, FUCK YOU!"

"Patel? Fuck you. Fuckin' Shiva handed him a million dollars, told him sign the deal, he wouldn't sign. And Vishnu, too into the bargain."

"Patel?!?! Ravadahm Patel?!?! How am I going to make a living on these deadbeat wogs?! Where'd you get this from, a morgue? Oh come on! What's the fuckin' point?! What's the fuckin' point in any case!? I gotta argue with you? I gotta knock heads with the cops? I'm busting my balls, sell your dirt to two deadbeats; money in a mattress. I come back, you can't even keep the contracts safe. I got to go out and close them again. What the fuck am I wasting my time... Fuck this shit!"

"Then I'm over the fucking top and you owe me a Cadillac. And I don't want any fucking shit and I don't give a shit."

"You ever take a dump, made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours?"

"Or me lying in the... Let me tell ya... Lying in bed the next day, she brought me cafe au lait, she gives me a cigarette. My balls feel like concrete. Eh?"

"Cop couldn't find his fucking couch, the living room."