Joseph Heller Quotes

“Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. 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.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“They’re not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?”
“Who else will go?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.”
― Joseph Heller, Something Happened