quotes by Joseph Heller

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. 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. 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."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"Insanity is contagious."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."
— Joseph Heller

"'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."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

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

"The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them."
— Joseph Heller

"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.
"
— Joseph Heller

""Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?" Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. "This long." He snapped his fingers. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man."

"Old?" asked Clevinger with surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"Old."

"I'm not old."

"You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?" Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.

"Well, maybe it is true," Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. "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 do," Dunbar told him.

"Why?" Clevinger asked.

"What else is there?"
"
— Joseph Heller (Catch 22)

"where are the snowdens of yesteryear?"
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

"The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them."
— Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

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

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

"
— Joseph Heller (Catch 22)

"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 (Catch 22)

"There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"
— Joseph Heller (Catch 22)

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

"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."
— Joseph Heller

"“You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.” --Colonel Korn, Catch-22 "
— Joseph Heller

"Rise above principal and do what's right.
"
— Joseph Heller