Joseph Heller Quotes

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.

It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts — and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?

In my middle years, I have exchanged the position of the fetus for the position of a corpse.

"Let someone else get killed!" "Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" "Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"

This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.

Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.

I'm not even sure we really had that much need for God as much as we did seem to have a need to believe in Him.

God had no need for Ecclesiastes to acquaint Him with vanity.

Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there.

The years are too short, the days are too long.

The only wisdom I think I've attained is the wisdom to be skeptical of other people's ideology and other people's arguments. I tend to be a skeptic, I don't like dogmatic approaches by anybody. I don't like intolerance and a dogmatic person is intolerant of other people. It's one of the reasons I keep a distance from all religious beliefs. I think in this country and in Australia too there's a late intolerance in most religions, an intolerance, a part that could easily become persecutions. We have some ultra-orthodox Jewish sects here in New York and I fear them as much as I would fear a Nazi organisation.

“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?”

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.