No one's ever dared come out and say it before, but there's not a man among us that doesn't think it, that doesn't feel just as you do about her and the whole business - feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul.
Anesthetized time; nothing moves and everything is at once.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Kesey reflects on the nature of time and existence, suggesting a moment of stillness where everything converges.
This quote by Ken Kesey evokes a profound meditation on the experience of time in a state of anesthetization where the usual passage of time is altered, creating a surreal moment where all experiences and events seem to be present simultaneously. It captures the tension between the relentless forward movement of time and the stillness of perception, inviting us to consider how we occupy our moments and the weight of existence in those fleeting fragments.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on existentialism, one might refer to this quote to illustrate the concept of time perception.
More from Ken Kesey
All quotes βHis whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift. But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.
You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.
But I remember one thing:_x000D_ _x000D_ it wasn't me that started acting deaf;_x000D_ _x000D_ it was people that first started acting like_x000D_ _x000D_ I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all
The job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
If this glorious birth to death hassle is the only hassle we are ever to have ..if our grand exhilarating fight of life is such a tragically short little scrap anyway,compared to the eons of rounds before and after-then why should one want to relinquish even a few precious seconds of it?
Similar quotes
But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had-power.
I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.
These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence.
One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.
I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it's never happened yet.
Every human life contains a potential, if that potential is not fulfilled, then that life was wasted.