Quotes About Paradox

Hullunkurinen juttu, tämä elämä – tämä salaperäinen järjestelmä, jonka armoton logiikka toimii turhaa tarkoitusta varten. Enin mitä siltä voi toivoa saavansa on vähäinen itsetuntemus – joka tulee liian myöhään, satonaan lähtemätön katumus.

He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible which is also detestable

The search for a new type of rationality became just another form of antirationalism.

Where were you born? On a battlefield, [Yossarian] answered. No, no. In what state were you born? In a state of innocence.

mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.

Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.

That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left.

It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. That's some catch, that catch-22.

That's some catch, that Catch-22,' he observed. 'It's the best there is,' Doc Daneeka agreed. Yossarian saw it clearly in all its spinning reasonableness. There was an elliptical precision about its perfect pairs of parts that was graceful and shocking, like good modern art, and at times Yossarian wasn't quite sure that he saw it at all, just the way he was never quite sure about good modern art…

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

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.

That's some catch, that Catch-22, he observed. It's the best there is, Doc Daneeka agreed.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

Sure, there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.

You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. That's some catch, that Catch-22, he observed. It's the best there is, Doc Daneeka agreed.

Why,' swore Yossarian at him approvingly, 'you evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded, disaffiliated son of a -----, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?' 'I didn't,' Orr said, 'walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab apples in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples, I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks.

Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.

that you have to be insane before they will let you fly no more missions, but the fact that you want to fly no more missions is proof that you are not insane.

Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all

Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch...

Orr was one of the homeliest freaks Yossarian had ever encountered, and one of the most attractive.