Joseph Heller
91 quotes
Biography
Joseph Heller was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is his debut novel Catch-22 (1961), a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice.
"He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt."
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you."
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."
"I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long."
"Every writer I know has trouble writing."
"What the hell are you getting so upset about?"he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God.""I don't,"she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. "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 I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?""
"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?"
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. "That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed."
"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive."
"“From now on I'm thinking only of me.” Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: “But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way?” “Then,” said Yossarian, “I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”"
"Let someone else get killed!" "Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" "Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three."
"The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with."
"Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals."
"Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!"
"Yossarian — the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist."
"They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him."
"You know, that might be the answer — to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail."
"This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made."
"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action."
"How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements?"
"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."
"Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably.... It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all."
"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."