# Quote — Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

> I thought for a minute there I saw her whipped. Maybe I did. But I see now that it don't make any difference.... To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that.

- Author: [Ken Kesey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey.md)
- Book: [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey#One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(1962)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/i-thought-for

## More from this book

> I watched and tried to figure out what he would have done. I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn't have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/i-watched-and.md)

> "What worries me, Billy," she said — I could hear the change in her voice — "is how your mother is going to take this."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/what-worries-me-billy.md)

> Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range . . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River . . .

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-kesey/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/along-the-western.md)