C.F. Heller Quotes

Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.

I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.

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.

We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist.

It's like an angel crying on your tongue.

... there is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete, and everyone is capable of everything.

Where were you born?" "On a battlefield," [Yossarian] answered. "No, no. In what state were you born?" "In a state of innocence.

Be glad you're even alive.' Be furious you're going to die.

I can't start writing until I have a closing line.

There was only one catch and that was catch 22

The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them.

The first myth of management is that it exists.

But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.

When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'

I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.

In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out.

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.

We are bound by the secrets we share.

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

I want to be two people at once. One runs away.

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.

Rise above principal and do what's right.

It's similar to the way you feel cuddling an infant or a kitten, when you want to squeeze it so hard you'd kill it.

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

The difference between management and administration (which is what bureaucrats used to do exclusively) is the difference between choice and rigidity.

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.

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

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.

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

One of the advantages of series TV is that you can change your mind and plan things as you go.

It gives me vertigo to watch TV dramas.

To me, the difference between mythology and real history is that the real history has to tell a kind of believable story of how things happened. The physics has to work.

Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes.

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.

I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo.

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

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

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

I don't write books for people to be friends with the characters. If you want to find friends, go to a cocktail party.

I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.

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

And anything worth dying for

You always think, no matter how many times you fail, that the next time you will succeed. Otherwise you wouldn't keep trying.