Joseph Heller quotes - page 4

But how can one be warm alone? (Joseph Heller)
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. View quote
Joseph Heller
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. View quote
Joseph Heller
You wouldn't be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear. View quote
Joseph Heller
All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. View quote
Joseph Heller
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. View quote
Joseph Heller
They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him. View quote
Joseph Heller
God had no need for Ecclesiastes to acquaint Him with vanity. View quote
Joseph Heller
Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy. View quote
Joseph Heller
Nothing fails like success. View quote
Joseph Heller
I hate God and I hate life. And the closer I come to death, the more I hate life. (Joseph Heller)
I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out toward me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime. View quote
Joseph Heller
Love is potent stuff, isn't it? View quote
Joseph Heller
Gold was opposed to segregation and equally opposed to integration. Certainly he did not believe that women or homosexuals should suffer persecution or discrimination. On the other hand, he was privately opposed to all equal rights amendments, for he certainly did not want members of either group associating with him on levels of equality or familiarity. View quote
Joseph Heller
I am arrogant enough to wish I were modest as he and modest enough to know that this is arrogance. View quote
Joseph Heller
In my middle years, I have exchanged the position of the fetus for the position of a corpse. View quote
Joseph Heller
There was no way of knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of knowing anything. View quote
Joseph Heller
When one is infatuated, faults are endearing that in others would be heinous. View quote
Joseph Heller
It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him. View quote
Joseph Heller
All is vanity, you know, ALL in the long run is but vanity and vexation of spirit. View quote
Joseph Heller
Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him 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. (Joseph Heller)
He who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed. View quote
Joseph Heller
He [God] owes me an apology too- at the very least. I'm not saying I shouldn't have been punished for those sins I committed. I'm saying that the punishments he chose were inhuman. I wonder what favor I'd want. I think I may be afraid to ask for it. I'm afraid He won't grant it. I'm more afraid that He will. Wouldn't it be tragic to find out that He really has been here all this time? View quote
Joseph Heller
The end result of experiencing terror and injury is not an increase in compassion, but a tendency toward callousness. View quote
Joseph Heller
He could never decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he had found it impossible to do both simultaneously. View quote
Joseph Heller