Quotes from Joseph Heller

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.

Yossarian marveled that children could suffer such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He took for granted that they did submit so stoically. If not, he reasoned, the custom would certainly have died, for no craving for wealth or immortality could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children.

People have a right to do anything that's not forbidden by law, and there's no law against lying to you.

I frequently feel I'm being taken advantage of merely because I'm asked to do the work I'm paid to do.

They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

I used to think it was immoral to be unhappy.

Catch-22 says they have the right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.

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.

Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope.

All over the world, boys on every side of bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives.

Yossarian - the very sight of the name made Colonel Cathcart 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. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence.

Little by little, or maybe all at once, everything comes to mean its opposite; unreason argues itself into reason, and vice versa, and we cannot see the seams.

I really do admire you a bit. 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. - Colonel Korn

The important thing is to keep them pledging, he explained to his cohorts. 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.

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 have a feeling that someone nearby is soon going to find out something about me that will mean the end, although I can't imagine what that something is.

Maybe I am senile already and people are too kind to tell me. People are not kind and would tell me. (Maybe people have told me, and I'm too senile to remember).

Kraft was a skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked, and was destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition. Instead, of being liked, he was dead, a bleeding cinder on the barbarous pile whom nobody had heard in those last precious moments while the plane with one wing plummeted.

He was a spry, suave and very precise general who knew the circumference of the equator and always wrote enhanced when he meant increased. He was a prick.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you

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

Haven't you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God? I'd like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether if we can." The chaplain was apologetic. I'm sorry, sir, but just about all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God.

He could not make them understand that...having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort.

You haven't got a chance kid,' he had told him glumly.'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.