One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
First published 1962 · English · 311 pages
- Novels
- Science and nature
Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, this novel is narrated by Chief Bromden, a large patient who is thought to be deaf and mute. The ward is run with quiet, rigid control by Nurse Ratched. The arrival of Randle McMurphy, a loud and charming rule-breaker, upsets her routine and gives the other patients a new sense of possibility. Kesey draws on his own work in a hospital to explore conformity, power and what society calls madness. Funny, angry and often strange, it became one of the defining American novels of the 1960s.
Quotes
I'm here to cooperate with ya a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I'll be just right down the line with ya, you watch. 'Cause I think we ought to get to the bottom of R. P. McMurphy.
You wanna bet? One week. I bet in one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass she won't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch.
How about it? You creeps, you lunatics, mental defectives. Let's hear it for Bull Goose Randle back in action...You ding-a-lings. The Mental Defective League, in formation.
[after his electric shock therapy] They, uh, was givin' me 10,000 watts a day, you know, and I'm hot to trot. The next woman takes me on's gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars!