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

> While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

- 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/while-mcmurphy-laughs

## 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)