Bedbyas Datta > Bedbyas's Quotes

“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

“What would they do to me," he asked in confidential tones, "if I refused to fly them?"
We'd probably shoot you," ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied.
We?" Yossarian cried in surprise. "What do you mean, we? Since when are you on their side?"
If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on?" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen retorted”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“What do you do when it rains?"
The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"
"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.
"Every one of whom?"
"Every one of whom do you think?"
"I haven't any idea."
"Then how do you know they aren't?"
"Because..." Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.
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.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Nately was instantly up in arms again. "There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!" he declared.

"Isn't there?" asked the old man. "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."

"Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for."

"And anything worth dying for," answered the sacrilegious old man, "is certainly worth living for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Where were you born?"
"On a battlefield," [Yossarian] answered.
"No, no. In what state were you born?"
"In a state of innocence.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?"
"Yes, sir, it has."
"Then why do you do it?"
"To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.”
― Heller Joseph, Catch 22

“Yossarian decided to change the subject. "Now you're changing the subject." he pointed out diplomatically. "I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He found Luciana sitting alone at a table in the Allied officers' night club, where the drunken Anzac major who had brought her there had been stupid enough to desert her for the ribald company of some singing comrades at the bar.
"All right, I'll dance with you," she said, before Yossarian could even speak. "But I won't let you sleep with me."
"Who asked you?" Yossarian asked her.
"You don't want to sleep with me?" she exclaimed with surprise.
"I don't want to dance with you.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the control tower summoned them down. The more it rained, the worse they suffered. The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forward most position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland.

For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city.

When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers. "I really can't believe it," Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. "It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left."

In the middle of the night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Just what the hell did you mean, you bastard, when you said we couldn't punish you?" said the corporal who could take shorthand reading from his steno pad.

"All right," said the colonel. "Just what the hell did you mean?"

"I didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir."

"When," asked the colonel.

"When what, sir?"

"Now you're asking me questions again."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I don't understand your question."

"When didn't you say we couldn't punish you? Don't you understand my question?"

"No, sir, I don't understand."

"You've just told us that. Now suppose you answer my question."

"But how can I answer it?"

"That's another question you're asking me."

"I'm sorry, sir. But I don't know how to answer it. I never said you couldn't punish me."

"Now you're telling us what you did say. I'm asking you to tell us when you didn't say it."

Clevinger took a deep breath. "I always didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Why don't you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven, too."
"Because it’s better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees,” Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. “I guess you’ve heard that saying before.”
“Yes, I certainly have,” mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. “But I’m afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees. That is the way the saying goes.”
“Are you sure?” Nately asked with sober confusion. “It seems to make more sense my way.”
“No, it makes more sense my way. Ask your friends.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"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

“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

“He was a spry, suave and very precise general who knew the circumference of the equator and always wrote "enhanced" when he meant "increased." He was a prick.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“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. 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.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“I really do admire you a bit. You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it." - Colonel Korn”
― 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

“Last night in the latrine. Didn't you whisper that we couldn't punish you to that other dirty son of a bitch we don't like? What's his name?"

"Yossarian, sir," Lieutenant Scheisskopf said.

"Yes, Yossarian. That's right. Yossarian. Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian?"

Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his finger tips. "It's Yossarian's name, sir," he explained.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He smiled ostentatiously to show himself reasonable and nice. "I'm not saying that to be cruel and insulting," he continued with cruel and insulting delight.”
― Joseph Heller

“Why don't you ever whip me?" she pouted one night.
"Because I haven't the time," he snapped at her impatiently. "I haven't the time. Don't you know there's a parade going on?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Haven't you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God? I'd like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether if we can.”

The chaplain was apologetic. "I'm sorry, sir, but just about all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Mostly Sally

“The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.”
― P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

“Everything in life that’s any fun, as somebody wisely observed, is either immoral, illegal or fattening.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.”
― P.G. Wodehouse , The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology

“If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens