One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film) Quotations

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is 1975 film about R.P. McMurphy, a petty criminal who has been sentenced to a relatively short prison term but has been transferred to a mental institution. Upon his arrival, he rallies the patients to take on the oppressive Nurse Mildred Ratched. The film was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director, Screenplay) since 1934.

Directed by Milos Forman. Written by Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben, adapted from the novel by Ken Kesey.

If he's crazy, what does that make you?

R.P. McMurphy

She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen. She was very willing, if ya know what I mean. I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what's being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it.

[to Billy] 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!

They, uh, was givin' me ten thousand watts a day, you know, and I'm hot to trot. The next woman who takes me out is gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars.

Jesus, I must be crazy to be in a loony-bin like this.

Nurse Ratched

If Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to take his medication orally, I'm sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way.

Others

Chief Bromden: Mac, they said you escaped. I knew you wouldn't leave without me. I was waiting for you. Now we can make it, Mac. I feel big as a damn mountain. [he sees the lobotomy scars] Oh, no. [suffocating McMurphy] I'm not goin' without you, Mac. I wouldn't leave you this way. You're coming with me. [laying him down] Let's go.

Dialogue

Dr. Spivey: It said you've been belligerent, talked when unauthorized, been resentful in attitude toward work. In general, that you're lazy.

McMurphy: Chewing gum in class. Ha-ha.

Dr. Spivey: Well, the real reason that you've been sent over here is because they wanted you to be evaluated to determine whether or not you are mentally ill. This is the real reason.

McMurphy: Well, as near as I can figure out, it's 'cause I, uh, fight and fuck too much.

Dr. Spivey: In prison?

McMurphy: No, no!

Dr. Spivey: Well, you've had five prior arrests for assault.

McMurphy: Five fights, huh? Rocky Marciano's got forty and he's a millionaire.

Dr. Spivey: The funny thing is that the person that he's the closest to is the one he dislikes the most... That's you, Mildred.

Nurse Ratched: Well gentlemen, my opinion, if we send him back to Pendleton or we send him up to Disturbed, it's just one more way of passing on our problems to somebody else. You know, we don't like to do that. So I'd like to keep him on the ward. I think we can help him.

McMurphy: What do you think you are, for Christ's sake, crazy or something? Well, you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walking around on the streets, and that's it!

Nurse Ratched: Those are very challenging observations you made, Randall.

Chief Bromden: My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That's why everybody worked on him. The last time I seen my father, he was blind and diseased from drinking. And every time he put the bottle to his mouth, he don't suck out of it, it sucks out of him until he shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs didn't know him.

McMurphy: Killed him, huh?

Chief Bromden: I'm not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they're working on you.

[Billy is discovered in bed with Candy.]

Nurse Ratched: Aren't you ashamed?

Billy: No, I'm not. [the other patients applaud]

Nurse Ratched: You know, Billy, what worries me is how your mother's going to take this.

Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don't have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.

Nurse Ratched: I don't have to tell her? Your mother and I are old friends. You know that.

Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don't tell my m-m-m-mother.

Cast

Jack Nicholson - Randall Patrick McMurphy
Louise Fletcher - Nurse Mildred Ratched
Will Sampson - Chief Bromden
Brad Dourif - Billy Bibbit
William Redfield - Harding
Michael Berryman - Ellis
Danny DeVito - Martini
Christopher Lloyd - Taber
Peter Brocco - Colonel Matterson
Dean R. Brooks - Dr. John Spivey
Alonzo Brown - Miller
Scatman Crothers - Orderly Turkle
Sydney Lassick - Charlie Cheswick
Dwight Marfield - Ellsworth, Dancing Patient
Philip Roth - Woolsey
Mimi Sarkisian - Nurse Pilbow
Mews Small - Candy

Quoternity