Joseph Heller Quotes
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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.
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...Anything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
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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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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.
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Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskoph had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times.
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I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
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I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
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I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy
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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.
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Let someone else get killed!
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But how can one be warm alone?
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I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
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Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
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There was only one catch and that was catch 22
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That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
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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.
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The laws of nature are only as immutable as the minds which promote them. Ignorance of the law is 9/10ths of the law. Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
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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.
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He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
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Insanity is contagious.
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You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate." "Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.
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I couldn't see much point in tying myself down to a middle-aged woman with four children, even though the woman was my wife and the children were my own.
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I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.