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Joseph Heller Quotes
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It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.
Joseph Heller
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If the chance ever comes to you to fall in love, grab it, every time. You might always live to regret it, but you won't find anything to beat it, and you won't know if it will come to you once more.
Joseph Heller
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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.
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All is vanity, you know, ALL in the long run is but vanity and vexation of spirit.
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The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is highest in the world, will last as long as...the frog?
Joseph Heller
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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
Joseph Heller
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He [God] owes me an apology too- at the very least. I'm not saying I shouldn't have been punished for those sins I committed. I'm saying that the punishments he chose were inhuman. I wonder what favor I'd want. I think I may be afraid to ask for it. I'm afraid He won't grant it. I'm more afraid that He will. Wouldn't it be tragic to find out that He really has been here all this time?
Joseph Heller
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Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.
Joseph Heller
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As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.
Joseph Heller
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Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
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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.
Joseph Heller
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Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is.
Joseph Heller
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I wanted to be a writer when I was in the sixth grade. Of course I wanted to be one without working at it.
Joseph Heller
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I don't understand the process of imagination — though I know that I am very much at its mercy. I feel that these ideas are floating around in the air and they pick me to settle upon.
Joseph Heller
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You wouldn't be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.
Joseph Heller
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-You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!
Joseph Heller
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Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.
Joseph Heller
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Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts — and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?
Joseph Heller
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I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
Joseph Heller
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Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
Joseph Heller
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The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish.
Joseph Heller
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When one is infatuated, faults are endearing that in others would be heinous.
Joseph Heller
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I do know that girls in their early twenties are easy and sweet. (Girls in their late twenties are easier but sad, and that isn't so sweet.) They are easy, I think, because they are sweet, and they are sweet, I think, because they are dumb.
Joseph Heller
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That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
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Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there.
Joseph Heller
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Joseph Heller
Creative Commons
Born:
May 1, 1923
Died:
December 12, 1999
(aged 76)
Bio:
Joseph Heller was an American satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright.
Known for:
Catch-22 (1961)
Something Happened (1974)
God Knows (1984)
Closing Time (1994)
Good as Gold (1979)
Most used words:
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