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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?'

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
Saying
Read
Anything
Done
Writing
Something
Reply
Good
Tempted
Catch

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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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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They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.
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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
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I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
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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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He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret
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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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All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.
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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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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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I can't start writing until I have a closing line.
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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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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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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.
Joseph Heller
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The enemy, retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.
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Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
Joseph Heller
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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
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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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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
Joseph Heller