Joseph Heller Quotes
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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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I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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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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For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.
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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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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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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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...Anything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
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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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It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.
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They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.
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Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
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I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
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There was only one catch and that was catch 22
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But how can one be warm alone?
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Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
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Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?
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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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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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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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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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Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.