Quotes from Joseph Heller

Any possibilities that I might be mistaken about her humor were dispelled by her first words.

and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He

There's nothing wrong with nightmares," Hungry Joe answered. "Everybody has nightmares." Yossarian thought he had him. "Every night?" he asked. "Why not every night?" Hungry Joe demanded. And suddenly it all made sense. Why not every night, indeed? It made sense to cry out in pain every night.

Celibacy has few pleasures. I know, but marriage has many pains. And harems are not always what they're cracked up to be. Rarely in the long run are they worth the cost and endless bother... And if marriage has many pains, polygamous marriage multiplies those pains to an unforeseeable extent with the commotion generating from squabbling wives and contending offspring.

They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

That's the kind of God you people talk about—a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, 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?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

For Catch-22 is the unwritten law which empowers the authorities to revoke your rights whenever it suits their cruel whims;

Who could conceive back then the enormity of Saul's brooding hatred for me or comprehend the threatening paradox that the more I accomplished to gratify him, the greater would grow the jealousy and wrath he felt toward me? I know I was hurt when I saw him so angry with me that first time, and I was flustered in a queer and guilt-ridden way each time I found him so thereafter.

What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.

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. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all. 'I'm cold,' Snowden said. 'I'm cold. 'There, there,' said Yossarian. 'There, there.

The food was elegant and expensive, and the aisles were overflowing with great streams of flushed and merry proprietors, all stout and balding.

Come le medaglie olimpiche e le coppe di tennis, significavano solo che il loro possessore aveva fatto più brillantemente di chiunque altro qualcosa che non serviva a nessuno.

Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has for something so absurd as a country.

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.

Honestly now, Chaplain, you wouldn't want your sister to marry an enlisted man, would you? My sister is an enlisted man, sir, the chaplain replied.

You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Slums depress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!

A martyred look accompanied this reply, belying her air of passionless indifference.

In a democracy, the government is the people, Milo explained. We're people, aren't we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If we pay the government everything we owe it, we'll only be encouraging governmental control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. We'll be taking away their incentive.

Cum te simÈ›i, Yossarian? -Bine. Ba nu, sunt foarte speriat. -Asta-i bine, spuse maiorul Danby, dovedeÈ™te c? eÈ™ti înc? viu.

They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed. Cronies

staring bleakly at the endless tame, quiet waves breaking like pet puppy dogs against the shore, scampering lightly up the sand a foot or two and then trotting away.

Polish sausage is going for peanuts in Cracow,' Milo informed him. 'polish sausage', sighed the general nostalgically. 'You know, I'd give just about anything for a good hunk of Polish sausage. Just about anything.

this used to be a pretty good country to live in before they loused it up with their goddam piety.