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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.

Joseph Heller

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Joseph Heller
Age: 76 †
Born: 1923
Born: May 1
Died: 1999
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Accepting
Call
Simple
Thing
Treachery
Going
Injustice
Way
Luck
Good
Destiny
Accept

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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Yossarian decided to change the subject. Now you're changing the subject. he pointed out diplomatically. I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.
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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.
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What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.
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...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
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Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence? Yes, sir, it has. Then why do you do it? To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.
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I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.
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I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
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There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
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Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.
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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.
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Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?
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When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'
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He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
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where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
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They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.
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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.
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What do you do when it rains? The captain answered frankly. I get wet.
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Where were you born? On a battlefield, [Yossarian] answered. No, no. In what state were you born? In a state of innocence.
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It is the anonymous they, the enigmatic they who are in charge. Who is they? I don't know. Nobody knows. Not even they themselves.
Joseph Heller