Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999)
American novelist and playwright.
Nothing fails like success.
I am arrogant enough to wish I were modest as he and modest enough to know that this is arrogance.
"But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share."
Love is potent stuff, isn't it?
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.
God had no need for Ecclesiastes to acquaint Him with vanity.
The years are too short, the days are too long.
Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there.
"If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?"
"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.
Women don't suffer from penis envy. Men do.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. 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. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.
The wise man dies no better or more wisely than the fool. In what way, then, is the wise man wise?
I think I may have been the first grown man in the world to fall truly, passionately, sexually, romantically and sentimentally in love. I practically invented it.
If character is destiny, the good are damned.
He could never decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he had found it impossible to do both simultaneously.
"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."
Didn't I once observe that there is nothing new under the sun?