Quotes from Joseph Heller

His response to them [women] as sexual beings was one of frenzied worship and idolatry. They were lovely, satisfying, maddening manifestations of the miraculous, instruments of pleasure too powerful to be measured, too keen to be endured, and too exquisite to be intended for employment by base, unworthy man.

What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was not? What could you say to him?

Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions. He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat.

They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits.

She destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning by the way she found them, used them, and tossed them aside.

He was working hard at increasing his life span. He did it by cultivating boredom.

I lost my balls! Aarfy, I lost my balls!

They think that they're smart and that the rest of us are dumb.

I'm a regular supra man

Be thankful you're healthy." "Be bitter you're not going to stay that way." "Be glad you're even alive." "Be furious you're going to die.

The spirit gone, man is garbage.

You know, one good apple can spoil the rest," Colonel Korn concluded with conscious irony.

Hungry Joe was crazy, and no one knew it better than Yossarian, who did everything he could to help him. Hungry Joe just wouldn't listen to Yossarian. Hungry Joe just wouldn't listen because he thought Yossarian was crazy

She acts like she don't like you She doesn't like anyone She likes Capitan Black, Orr reminded. That's because he treats her like dirt. Anyone can get a girl that way

Being born with a sickly resemblance to Henry Fonda was the first of a long series of practical jokes of which destiny was to make Major Major the unhappy victim throughout his joyless life. Being born Major Major Major was the second

In short, he was a dope. He often looked to Yossarian like one of those people hanging around modern museums with both eyes together on one side of a face. It was an illusion, of course, generated by Clevinger's predilection for staring fixedly at one side of a question and never seeing the other side at all.

Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never found one.

trying to evade the people who frighten us. We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, changing our partner and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead.

I've flown over seventy goddam combat missions. Don't talk to me about fighting to save my country. I've been fighting all along to save my country. Now I'm going to fight a little to save myself. The country's not in danger any more, but I am.

Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school.

Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.

How do you feel Yossarian? Fine. No, I'm very frightened. That's good, said Major Danby. It proves you're still alive. It won't be fun. Yossarian started out. Yes it will.

Yossarian was in love with the maid in the lime-colored panties because she seemed to be the only woman left he could make love to without falling in love with.

He woke up blinking with a slight pain in his head and opened his eyes upon a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper order.