Joseph Heller
I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.Collection: Dreams
Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.Collection: Peace
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.
When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
Rise above principle and do what's right.
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. 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.
When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'
Every writer I know has trouble writing.
Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.
He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
I do not have, and never had, any interest in either the Bible or religion.
The villains will come along. There were plenty in the Carter administration, and there will be plenty with Reagan.
Never quit a job as a matter of principle. You'll always regret it.
The idea of using actual clippings came about as a way of characterizing Gold. Gold uses clippings because he hates doing research and is not even really interested in the books and articles he writes.
I've only had four ideas for a novel in my life, and I've written all of them.
I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.
I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.
Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
I don't believe in miracles because it's been a long time since we've had any.
I think Haig will be foolish, but perhaps not quite as foolish as Kissinger was, because Haig doesn't have the education Kissinger had. Haig is a little more dangerous because, I fear, he believes what he says, whereas I never got that impression from Kissinger.
I've adjusted to this, that my books are not going to get unanimously good reviews.
All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.
It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.Collection: Inspirational
The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?Collection: Depression
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.Collection: Answers
[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.Collection: People
For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.Collection: War
There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.Collection: People
Rise above principal and do what's right.Collection: Rise Above
In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.Collection: Running
The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.Collection: Country
mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.Collection: Atrocities
The body stores the trauma of our lives in muscular rigidity, thereby keeping us stuck in the past. When we release the tension in the body and align ourselves with gravity, we take a new stand in life. This allows us to be at ease with ourselves and in harmony in our relationship to others and to our planet.Collection: Past
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?Collection: Crazy
The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.Collection: Loneliness
History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.Collection: Country
Insanity is contagious.Collection: Insanity
The laws of nature are only as immutable as the minds which promote them. Ignorance of the law is 9/10ths of the law. Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.Collection: Ignorance
Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.Collection: Men
You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!Collection: Military
If a man is going to leave one wife to marry another, it's better if he divorces the first before he marries the second.Collection: Divorce
I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warningCollection: Dark
To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.Collection: Ideas