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Quotes from The Paris Review interview — Ken Kesey

1935–2001 United States

← All quotes by Ken Kesey

13 quotes

The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

One of these days you're going to have a visitation.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

When people ask me about LSD, I always make a point of telling them you can have the shit scared out of you with LSD because it exposes something, something hollow.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

Anytime you have a force that comes along and says, We will eradicate these people, you have evil.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

I like that saying of Thoreau’s that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.”

The Paris Review interview (1994)

Real warriors like William Burroughs or Leonard Cohen or Wallace Stevens examine the hollow as well as anybody; they get in there, look far into the dark, and yet come out with poetry.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

She worked for the villain and believed in the villain, but she ain’t the villain.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

But all of us know that’s not what is supposed to be in that hole.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

You’ve got to fight them, but you don’t try to exterminate them.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

Kerouac had lots of class — stumbling drunk in the end, but read those last books. He never blames anybody else; he always blames himself.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

And nobody had more class than Melville.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

I didn’t know what to think and she didn’t either, but I was glad she came up to me.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

There were other books that were being kept, real books. In those real books is the real accounting of your life.

The Paris Review interview (1994)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ken Kesey (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.