Joseph Heller Quotes
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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
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Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all. I'm cold,' Snowden said. 'I'm cold.
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I've come to look upon death the same way I look upon root-canal work. Everyone else seems to get through it all right, so it couldn't be too difficult for me.
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Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
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Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?
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It is the anonymous "they," the enigmatic "they" who are in charge. Who is "they"? I don't know. Nobody knows. Not even "they" themselves.
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Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts - and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?
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I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.
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The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them.
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Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.
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Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
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When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.
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They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings.
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Sure, that's what I mean,' Doc Daneeka said. 'A little grease is what makes this world go round. One hand washes the other. Know what I mean? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' Yossarian knew what he meant. That's not what I meant,' Doc Daneeka said, as Yossarian began scratching his back.
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You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.
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Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?
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Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.
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How did I get here? Somebody pushed me. Somebody must have set me off in this direction and clus-ters of other hands must have touched themselves to the controls at various times, for I would not have picked this way for the world.
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Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.
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All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.