One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Quotes

Context

This line is spoken by McMurphy in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey (1962).

McMurphy, a new patient at the mental institution where the novel is set, is talking to his fellow patients, Harding and Cheswick, about how weird this place is. He says that the first thing he noticed is that no one is laughing. He thinks you've got to keep laughing or you'll lose any power you had.

He might be right.

Where you've heard it

There are a lot of popular quotes about the importance of laughter, so it's excusable if they kind of run together in your head. However, you may have heard this one in the movie version, starring Jack Nicholson.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Kesey is sometimes seen as a bridge between the beat writers of the 1950s and the hippie writers of the 1960s. Quoting beat or hippie writers can leave you looking a bit pretentious…not because they were so profound, but because of how profound they thought they were.