Top 5 One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest quotes
"They don't bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I'm nearby because they think I'm deaf and dumb. Everybody thinks so. I'm cagey enough to fool them that much. If my being half Indian ever helped me in any way in this dirty life, it helped me being cagey, helped me all these years." - Bromden
Here we understand that Bromden is able to manipulate the staff because of their rigid belief that he is insane and unable to understand what occurs around him.
"I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters, and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. 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." - Bromden
Bromden breaks the fourth wall here to address the reader and to convince them about the veracity of his account. He requests the reader to keep an open mind about the impossible things. This is a reference to his altered state of mind that sometimes makes the mundane appear extraordinary. The manner in which he describes Nurse Ratched becoming a machine in the first chapter is a succinct example of something that obviously did not occur but is rather a metaphorical representation of the situation.
"The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken, and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones, and feathers. But usually, a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and get pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it—with chickens—is to clip blinders on them. So's they can't see." - McMurphy to Harding
McMurphy confronts Harding about the nature of therapy being administered by Nurse Ratched after attending his first group meeting. He is shocked at how the patients turn on one of their own and how easily Nurse Ratched is able to manipulate them. He fails to understand why the nurse has such control, how she “pecks the first peck” and then lets the other patients attack the patient.
"So you see my friend, it is somewhat as you stated: man has but one truly effective weapon against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy, but it certainly is not laughter. One weapon, and with every passing year in this hip, motivationally researched society, more and more people are discovering how to render that weapon useless and conquer those who have hitherto been conquerors… " - Harding to McMurphy
McMurphy and Harding are discussing the problem with the ward and its possible solution. Harding insinuates that a man's ultimate weapon against a woman is his manhood. This is another one of the many examples of blatant misogyny that are littered throughout the book. Kesey, in many instances, seems to equate sexual desire with sanity. He demonstrates how the sane McMurphy attempts to use his nudity to discomfort the nurse, who hides her sexuality under a plain white uniform.
"Except the sun, on these three strangers, is all of a sudden way the hell brighter than usual and I can see the . . . seams where they're put together. And, almost, see the apparatus inside them take the words I just said and try to fit the words in here and there, this place and that, and when they find the words don't have any place ready-made where they'll fit, the machinery disposes of the words like they weren't even spoken. " - Bromden
Here Bromden is describing the first time he felt like he was being ignored, the incident that forced him to feel like he did not exist. That was when two men in suits came sweating and clambering to his home in the Columbia gorge. They ridiculed the house of the chief, the condition of the village, and the lifestyle of the Native Americans. They acted like Bromden did not exist and conspired to gain the land of the tribe by contacting the White wife of the chief, his father.
