Joseph Heller Quotes

They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.

The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish.

Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.

Rise above principal and do what's right.

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.

But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be.

When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering.

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.

Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?

I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings.

Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.

That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.

Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.

For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.

I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.

I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.

A man's head is his castle.

What do you do when it rains?" The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.

Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskoph had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times.

And anything worth dying for

mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.

Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.

Remember that everyone deserves some fun during working hours.

All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.

Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)

The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.

If character is destiny, the good are damned.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.

If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?

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.

I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.

I don't think the 'what' distinguishes a good novel from a bad one but rather the 'how.'

Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.

The smartest people in Washington are the political reporters. They write about their inferiors.

I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy

Gold was not altogether certain what, anatomically, a gorge was, but he knew that his was rising.

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.

You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.

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.

Everybody is as unstable as water.

Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.

Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.

The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.

If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?

It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.

It's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise...-Bob Slocum

Let someone else get killed!