Joseph Heller Quotes
-
Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.
-
If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
-
It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.
-
Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.
-
Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
-
She was the epitome of stately sorrow each time she smiled.
-
To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.
-
But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.
-
Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskoph had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times.
-
Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
-
The body stores the trauma of our lives in muscular rigidity, thereby keeping us stuck in the past. When we release the tension in the body and align ourselves with gravity, we take a new stand in life. This allows us to be at ease with ourselves and in harmony in our relationship to others and to our planet.
-
From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
-
Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.
-
They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.
-
Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.
-
Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.
-
I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy
-
Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.
-
I never even realized I was Jewish until I was practically grown up. Or rather, I used to feel that everybody in the world was Jewish, which amounts to the same thing.
-
Yossarian decided to change the subject. "Now you're changing the subject." he pointed out diplomatically. "I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.
-
Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
-
After he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. One day he had a better idea. To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. "They asked for volunteers. It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. I'll write you the instant I get back." And he had not written anyone since.
-
The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is highest in the world, will last as long as...the frog?
-
They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.