logo

Quotes from Joseph Heller

The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.
~ Joseph Heller
Normally it was not until the latter half of a course that Gold lost interest in his subject matter and starting disliking his students. This term it was happening at the outset.
~ Joseph Heller
One of the things he wanted to start screaming about was the surgeon's knife that was almost certain to waiting for him and everyone else who lived long enough to die. He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.
~ Joseph Heller
Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world. 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.
~ Joseph Heller
My balls are gone!
~ Joseph Heller
Yossarian nodded and listened to Milo tell him that the decent thing to do if he did not like the way Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were running the group was to go to Russia, instead of stirring up trouble. Yossarian refrained from pointing out that Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, and Milo could all go to Russia if they did not like the way he was stirring up trouble.
~ Joseph Heller
After all, what is a liver? My father, for example, died of cancer of the liver and was never sick a day in his life up till the moment it killed him. Never felt a twinge of pain. In a way, that was too bad, since I hated my father. Lust for my mother, you know.
~ Joseph Heller
What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural.
~ Joseph Heller
It was odd how many wrongs leaving money seemed to right.
~ Joseph Heller
One of the things he wanted to start screaming about was the surgeon's knife that was almost certain to be waiting for him and everyone else who lived long enough to die.
~ Joseph Heller
You're the new squadron commander,' Colonel Cathcart had shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. 'But don't think it means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new squadron commander.
~ Joseph Heller
Gold's father was five feet two and subject to unexpected attacks of wisdom. 'Make money!' he might shout suddenly, apropos of nothing, and his stepmother would add liturgically, 'You should all listen to your father.'   
~ Joseph Heller
Nately's death, in fact, almost killed Yossarian too, for when he broke the news to Nately's whore in Rome she uttered a piercing heartbroken shriek and tried to bat him to death with a potato peeler.
~ Joseph Heller
Nately's death, in fact, almost killed Yossarian too, for when he broke the news to Nately's whore in Rome she uttered a piercing heartbroken shriek and tried to stab him to death with a potato peeler.
~ Joseph Heller
His novel, a work he had wrestled with, on and off, for almost three years, he had finally abandoned after one page. The novel was derivative of a poem Gold had written seven years before that was itself derived from a brilliant exegesis by a young Englishman of the works of Samuel Beckett that Gold wished he'd written himself.
~ Joseph Heller
Gold had discovered, since starting to exercise strenuously several years before, that he was able to make love with greater vitality, stamina, and self-control than formerly, and with much less pleasure.
~ Joseph Heller
Yossarian had done his best to warn him the night before. 'You haven't got a chance, kid,' he told him glumy. 'They hate Jews.' 'But I'm not Jewish,' answered Clevinger. 'It will make no difference,' Yossarian promised, and Yossarian was right. 'They're after everybody.
~ Joseph Heller
Ba nu e deloc piciorul tau! replica sora Cramer.Acest picior apartine guvernului SUA.
~ Joseph Heller
Introduced and tabled for more comprehensive discussion at future meetings were such topics as the art of fund-raising, the art of the deal, the artistry of publicity, the art of social climbing, the art of fashion designing, the art of the costume, the art of catering, and the art of conducting without dissension and bringing to a close on time a meeting lasting two hours that was pleasant, uneventful, unsurprising, and unnecessary.
~ Joseph Heller
never give testimony against another physician.
~ Joseph Heller
And both are gone. And ironically, I'm drawn to repeat my well known apothegm of futility: that, just as the person who wants praise will never be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And I therefore still don't know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die. Fortunately, I've been able to get by very neatly without doing either.
~ Joseph Heller
Milo's mustache was unfortunate because the separated halves never matched.
~ Joseph Heller
Well, maybe it is true, Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subded tone. 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?
~ Joseph Heller
I yearn for you tragically.
~ Joseph Heller