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Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.

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
People
Thrust
Mediocre
Mediocrity
Humorous
Achieve
Upon
Success
Born

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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
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How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements?
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If character is destiny, the good are damned.
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When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.
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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
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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.
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The night was full of horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts.
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In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out.
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Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
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I've come to look upon death the same way I look upon root-canal work. Everyone else seems to get through it all right, so it couldn't be too difficult for me.
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You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.
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He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret
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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
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I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I'm immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide supraman.
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The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
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There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.
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Gold was not altogether certain what, anatomically, a gorge was, but he knew that his was rising.
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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.
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Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.
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