Joseph Heller Quotes

Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?

I've come to look upon death the same way I look upon root-canal work. Everyone else seems to get through it all right, so it couldn't be too difficult for me.

I don't believe in miracles because it's been a long time since we've had any.

There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy ... There's a catch. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.

Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?

Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.

I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I'm immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide supraman.

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret

Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions. He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat.

When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.

You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.

Why are they going to disappear him?' I don't know.' It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.

Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.

There are yawning gulfs into which large chunks of me have fallen. I do not always know where I am at present.

If a man is going to leave one wife to marry another, it's better if he divorces the first before he marries the second.

[Chief White Halfoat:] Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nig*er, kike, wop, or spic.

General Peckem even recommends that we send our men into combat in full-dress uniform so they'll make a good impression on the enemy when they're shot down".

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Why are they going to disappear him?'I don't know.'It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.

-You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!

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

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt...

But Yossarian knew he was right, because, as he explained to Clevinger, to the best of his knowledge he had never been wrong.

The spirit gone, man is garbage.

I don't want to make sacrifices. I want to make dough.

That goddam stunted, red-faced, big-cheeked, apple-cheeked, curlyheaded, midget assed, , google-eyed, undersized, grinning, buck-toothed rat!!" Yossarian sputtered.~ Catch-22

Depreciating motels, junked automobiles, and quick-food joints grow like amber waves of grain.

Oh well, " McWatt sang, "what the hell.

It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean.

...You know, one good apple can spoil the rest, ” Colonel Korn concluded with conscious irony.

He woke up blinking with a slight pain in his head and opened his eyes upon a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper order.

Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?" "I do, " Dunbar told him. "Why?" Clevinger asked. "What else is there?

Frankly I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22 which specified the concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.