Joseph Heller Quotes
-
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.
-
That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
-
Let someone else get killed!
-
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.
-
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?
-
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
-
But how can one be warm alone?
-
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.
-
Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
-
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.
-
Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
-
He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
-
There was only one catch and that was catch 22
-
...Anything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
-
I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
-
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.
-
Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
-
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.
-
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.
-
When I grow up I want to be a little boy.