Joseph Heller Quotes

Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions. He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat.

Joseph Heller

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Quotes to Explore

• Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Simple
  • Destiny
  • Luck

• Be glad you're even alive.' Be furious you're going to die.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Alive
  • Dies
  • Glad

• Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • People
  • Achieve
  • Mediocrity

• Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • World
  • Men
  • Army

• There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Achieve
  • Disappointment

• They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Death
  • Lady

• All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Men
  • Night
  • Sky

• The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Society
  • Question
  • Insane

• History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Country
  • History
  • Goal

• I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I'm immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide supraman.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Real
  • Miracle
  • Honest

• Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?" "Every one of them," Yossarian told him. "Every one of whom?" "Every one of whom do you think?" "I haven't any idea." "Then how do you know they aren't?" "Because..." Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration. Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Trying
  • Frustration
  • Murder

• Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Hands
  • Letters
  • Adjectives

• He found Luciana sitting alone at a table in the Allied officers' night club, where the drunken Anzac major who had brought her there had been stupid enough to desert her for the ribald company of some singing comrades at the bar. "All right, I'll dance with you," she said, before Yossarian could even speak. "But I won't let you sleep with me." "Who asked you?" Yossarian asked her. "You don't want to sleep with me?" she exclaimed with surprise. "I don't want to dance with you.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Night
  • Sleep
  • Singing

• I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Responsibility
  • Negative
  • Yossarian

• I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Thinking
  • Country
  • Business

• A man's head is his castle.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Castles

• When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Objectives
  • Disagreed

• mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Week
  • Tomorrow
  • Mankind

• What do you do when it rains?" The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Rain
  • Captains
  • Wet

• There are yawning gulfs into which large chunks of me have fallen. I do not always know where I am at present.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Knows
  • Fallen
  • Chunks

• "What would they do to me," he asked in confidential tones, "if I refused to fly them?" "We'd probably shoot you," ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied. "We?" Yossarian cried in surprise. "What do you mean, we? Since when are you on their side?" "If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on?" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen retorted.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Mean
  • Surprise
  • Shots

• Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Successful
  • Lying
  • Ambitious

• If a man is going to leave one wife to marry another, it's better if he divorces the first before he marries the second.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • Men
  • Wife
  • Advice

• The smartest people in Washington are the political reporters. They write about their inferiors.

  

  Joseph Heller
  • People
  • Writing
  • Political