Ken Kesey on war and peace

The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.

Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it. And writing is essentially a trick.

I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• Liberty

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969The Chance for Peace (1953)

• Guns

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

George S. Patton1885–1945