Cayla > Cayla's Quotes

“He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.”
― Joseph Heller, 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. That's some catch, that catch-22.
”
― Joseph Heller

“He made so many people uneasy. Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Yossarian - the very sight of the name made Colonel Cathcart shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word "subversive" itself. It was like "seditious" and "insidious" too, and like "socialist," "suspicious," "fascist" and "Communist." It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“You’ve been unable to adjust to the idea of war.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You have a morbid aversion to dying.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“There was no way of really knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of really knowing anything.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“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 time 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

“Clevinger is a very bright guy, a Harvard man, who knows everything about literature except how to enjoy it.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Major Major's father had a good joke about opportunity. "Opportunity only knocks once in this world," he would say. Major Major's father repeated this good joke at every opportunity.”
― Joseph Heller

“Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“The soldier who saw everything twice nodded weakly and sank back on his bed. Yossarian nodded weakly too, eyeing his talented roommate with great humility and admiration. He knew he was in the presence of a master. His talented roommate was obviously a person to be studied and emulated. During the night, his talented roommate died, and Yossarian decided that he had followed him far enough.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He could not make them shut-up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“...'You haven't got a chance kid,' he had told him glumly. 'They hate Jews.'
'But I'm not Jewish,' answered Clevinger.
'It will make no difference,' Yossarian promised, and Yossarian was right. 'They're after everybody.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He was pinched perspiringly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“There were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“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?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“General Peckem even recommends that we send our men into combat in full-dress uniform so they'll make a good impression on the enemy when they're shot down".”
― Joseph Heller, Joseph Heller's Catch-22

“I don’t,’ she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. ‘But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Mudd was the unknown soldier who had never had a chance, for that was the only thing anyone ever did know about all the unknown soldiers—they never had a chance. They had to be dead.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“he had grown too old for fun, he no longer had the time.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“The men were perfectly content to fly as manny missions as we asked them as long as thought they had no alternative. Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Yossarian nodded and listened to Milo tell him that the decent thing to do if he did not like the way Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were running the group was to go to Russia, instead of stirring up trouble. Yossarian refrained from pointing out that Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, and Milo could all go to Russia if they did not like the way he was stirring up trouble.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Dunbar was lying motionless on his back again with his eyes staring up at the ceiling like a doll’s. He was working hard at increasing his life span. He did it by cultivating boredom. Dunbar was working so hard at increasing his life span that Yossarian thought he was dead.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“The father continued solemnly with his head lowered. “When you talk to the man upstairs,” he said, “I want you to tell Him something for me. Tell Him it ain’t right for people to die when they’re young. I mean it. Tell Him if they got to die at all, they got to die when they’re old. I want you to tell Him that. I don’t think He knows it ain’t right, because He’s supposed to be good and it’s been going on for a long, long time. Okay?” “And don’t let anybody up there push you around,” the brother advised. “You’ll be just as good as anybody else in heaven, even though you are Italian.” “Dress warm,” said the mother, who seemed to know.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Would you like to see our country lose?’ Major Major asked. ‘We won’t lose. We’ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. 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?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Be glad you're even alive.'
Be furious you're going to die.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“From now on I'm thinking only of me."

Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."

"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22