Catch-22

by Joseph Heller

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.

Dunbar liked Clevinger because Clevinger annoyed him and made the time go slow.

Before the war he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive marketing executive. He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work his way down,

Sergeant Knight thought about it and then politely informed Colonel Cargill that he was addressing the enlisted men and that the officers were to be found waiting for him on the other side of the squadron. Colonel Cargill thanked him crisply and glowed with self-satisfaction as he strode across the area. It made him proud to observe that twenty-nine months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.

Doc Daneeka was Yossarian’s friend and would do just about nothing in his power to help him.

Doc Daneeka had been told that people who enjoyed climbing into an airplane were really giving vent to a subconscious desire to climb back into the womb. He had been told this by Yossarian, who made it possible for Dan Daneeka to collect his flight pay each month without ever climbing back into the womb.

it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

He’s the one who tipped me off that our prose was too prolix.”

“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?”

“Every place we pitched our tent, they sank an oil well. Every time they sank a well, they hit oil. And every time they hit oil, they made us pack up our tent and go someplace else. We were human divining rods. Our whole family had a natural affinity for petroleum deposits, and soon every oil company in the world had technicians chasing us around. We were always on the move. It was one hell of a way to bring a child up, I can tell you. I don’t think I ever spent more than a week in one place.” His earliest memory was of a geologist.

“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. 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....

Yossarian was the best man in the group at evasive action, but had no idea why. There was no established procedure for evasive action. All you needed was fear, and Yossarian had plenty of that,

Hungry Joe was a jumpy, emaciated wretch with a fleshless face of dingy skin and bone and twitching veins squirming subcutaneously in the blackened hollows behind his eyes like severed sections of snake. It was a desolate, cratered face, sooty with care like an abandoned mining town. Hungry Joe ate voraciously, gnawed incessantly at the tips of his fingers, stammered, choked, itched, sweated, salivated, and sprang from spot to spot fanatically with an intricate black camera with which he was always trying to take pictures of naked girls.

Women killed Hungry Joe. His response to them as sexual beings was one of frenzied worship and idolatry.

rectified

inebriated

The nightmares appeared to Hungry Joe with celestial punctuality every single night he spent in the squadron throughout the whole harrowing ordeal when he was not flying combat missions and was waiting once again for the orders sending him home that never came. Impressionable men in the squadron like Dobbs and Captain Flume were so deeply disturbed by Hungry Joe’s shrieking nightmares that they would begin to have shrieking nightmares of their own, and the piercing obscenities they flung into the air every night from their separate places in the squadron rang against each other in the darkness romantically like the mating calls of songbirds with filthy minds.

“I don’t have nightmares,” Hungry Joe lied. “Maybe he can do something about them.” “There’s nothing wrong with nightmares,” Hungry Joe answered. “Everybody has nightmares.” Yossarian thought he had him. “Every night?” he asked. “Why not every night?” Hungry Joe demanded. And suddenly it all made sense. Why not every night, indeed? It made sense to cry out in pain every night.

buoyant

extrovert

do you happen to know why he was busted to private and is only a corporal now?” “Yes,” said Yossarian. “He poisoned the squadron.” Milo went pale again. “He did what?” “He mashed hundreds of cakes of GI soap into the sweet potatoes just to show that people have the taste of Philistines and don’t know the difference between good and bad. Every man in the squadron was sick. Missions were canceled.” “Well!” Milo exclaimed, with thin-lipped disapproval. “He certainly found out how wrong he was, didn’t he?” “On the contrary,” Yossarian corrected. “He found out how right he was. We packed it away by the plateful and clamored for more.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism.

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.

Great

Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.” “But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.” “Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn’t I?”

There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily.

“Why can’t they hook the two jars up to each other and eliminate the middleman?” the artillery captain with whom Yossarian had stopped playing chess inquired. “What the hell do they need him for?”

“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing.

stratagems

a plan or scheme to outwit an opponant.

craven

a coward

dejected

dispirited

impervious

not allowing fluid to pass through

unappeasable

pacify and relive anger or distress or blame

adroitly.

in a clever or skillfull way

debonair

stylish and confident

misgivings

feeling of doubt about the outcome of action or event

assailed

criticise sharply, or assult

unswerving

steady and and constant

embellish

make someone more attractive by adding details and oranaments

indefatigable

berating

smug.

He was someone in the know who was always striving pathetically to find out what was going on.

blustering,

incons...

inerad...

oscillated