Quotes from Joseph Heller

I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

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.

They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.

¨ Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them?¨

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.

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

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

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

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

Gold was not altogether certain what, anatomically, a gorge was, but he knew that his was rising.

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.

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.

From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.

I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.

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.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

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

Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

The villains will come along. There were plenty in the Carter administration, and there will be plenty with Reagan.

If character is destiny, the good are damned.