Joseph Heller Quotes
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I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.
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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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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.
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If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
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They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.
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Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.
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It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.
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As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.
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I don't believe in miracles because it's been a long time since we've had any.
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Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
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I don't think it's good to achieve too much at too early an age. What else can the future give you if you've already got all that your imagination has dreamt up for you? A writer is only discovered once in a lifetime, and if it happens very early the impossibility of matching that moment again can have a somewhat corrosive effect on his personality and indeed on the work itself.
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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
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Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
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The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
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Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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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?
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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.
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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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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.
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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
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She was the epitome of stately sorrow each time she smiled.
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Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskoph had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times.