Cuckoos Quotes

• The cuckoos remain silent for a long time (for several seasons) until they are able to sing sweetly (in the Spring) so as to give joy to all.

  Chanakya

  Wisdom, Spring, Long

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• The course of the seasons is a piece of clockwork, with a cuckoo to call when it is spring.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Spring, Pieces, Clockwork

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• O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

  William Wordsworth

  Voice, Bird, Blithe

  'To the Cuckoo' (O blithe new-comer!, 1807)

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• Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here.

  Alfred Austin

  Song, Spring, Years

  Alfred Austin, “Is Life Worth LIVIng?”

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• The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.

  Edmund Spenser

  Spring, Messengers, Trumpets

  Edmund Spenser, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1814). “Spenser's Sonnets”, p.38

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• There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Ideas, Earth, Immunity

  Kurt Vonnegut (1999). “Breakfast of Champions: Or, Goodbye Blue Monday!”, CNIB, 197

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• The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

  Chanakya

  Husband, Asceticism, Ugly

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• The cuckoo who is on to himself is halfway out of the clock.

  Wilson Mizner

  Bird, Cuckoo Clocks, Halfway

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• The first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

  William Wordsworth

  Firsts, Cry, Melancholy

  William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth (1815). “Poems”, p.174

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• Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
  Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
  Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.
  Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

  Thomas Nash

  Sweet, Kings, Spring

  Thomas Nash (1964). “Pierce Penniless his supplication to the Devil: Summer's last will and testament. The terrors of the night. The unfortunate traveller, and selected writings”

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• I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.

  Judy Blume

  Baby, Home, Writing

  "Judy Blume's Love, Writing About Kids Ages 9-12". Interview with Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. December 25, 2008.

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• You can't really be strong until you see a funny side to things.

  Ken Kesey

  Strength, Being Strong, Stay Strong

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.123, Hamilton Books

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• Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

  Ken Kesey

  Relationship, Happiness, Smile

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.36, Hamilton Books

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• Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Country, Style, Cuckoo Clocks

  Toronto Star Weekly 4 Mar. 1922, in William White By-line: Ernest Hemingway (1967) p. 18 See also F. Scott Fitzgerald (6.20)

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• In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!

  Graham Greene

  Love, Peace, Years

  Graham Greene, Carol Reed (1969). “The third man: a film”, Lorrimer Publishing Ltd.

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• He knows that 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.

  Ken Kesey

  Life, Running, Hurt

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.128, Hamilton Books

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• No, that nurse ain't some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. I've seen a thousand of 'em, old and young, men and women. Seen 'em all over the country and in the homes- people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin' you where it hurts the worst.

  Ken Kesey

  Country, Hurt, Home

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.31, Hamilton Books

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• Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king

  Thomas Nashe

  Sweet, Kings, Spring

  'Summer's Last Will and Testament' (1600) Song

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• When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo; O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear.

  William Shakespeare

  Fear, Men, Blue

  'Love's Labour's Lost' (1595) act 5, sc. 2, l. [902]

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• What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.

  Ken Kesey

  Crazy, Thinking, Average

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• 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 gets 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.

  Ken Kesey

  Couple, Rip, Party

  Ken Kesey (2002). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (SparkNotes Literature Guide)”, SparkNotes

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• But the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

  Ken Kesey

  Real, Men, Doors

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.36, Hamilton Books

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• But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.

  Ken Kesey

  Mcmurphy, Effort, Trying

  "Fictional character: R.P. McMurphy". One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, www.imdb.com. 1975.

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• What the Chronics are - or most of us - are machines with flaws inside that can't be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years of the guy running head-on into solid things that by the time the hospital found him he was bleeding rust in some vacant lot.

  Ken Kesey

  Running, Years, Guy

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.7, Hamilton Books

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• You’re just a young kid. What are you doin’ here? You oughta be out in a convertible, why… bird-doggin’ chicks and bangin’ beaver. What are ya doin’ here, for Christ’s sake? What’s funny about that? Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothin’ but complain about how you can’t stand it in this place here and then you haven’t got the guts just to walk out!

  Ken Kesey

  Jesus, Mean, Kids

  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Book by Ken Kesey, 1962.

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