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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?
Joseph Heller -
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.
Joseph Heller
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He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
Joseph Heller -
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
Joseph Heller -
...Anything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
Joseph Heller -
What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.
Joseph Heller -
For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.
Joseph Heller -
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
Joseph Heller
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Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.
Joseph Heller -
Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
Joseph Heller -
The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.
Joseph Heller -
Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.
Joseph Heller -
They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.
Joseph Heller -
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.
Joseph Heller
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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
Joseph Heller -
I don't believe in miracles because it's been a long time since we've had any.
Joseph Heller -
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.
Joseph Heller -
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.
Joseph Heller -
They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.
Joseph Heller -
Why are they going to disappear him?' I don't know.' It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.
Joseph Heller
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I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
Joseph Heller -
Insanity is contagious.
Joseph Heller -
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.
Joseph Heller -
In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.
Joseph Heller