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¨ Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of 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
Winning
Suffering
War
Must
Going
People
Complaining
Suffer

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.
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Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.
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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 had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
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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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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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There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.
Joseph Heller
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He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret
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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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I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
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A man's head is his castle.
Joseph Heller
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I can't start writing until I have a closing line.
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There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy ... There's a catch. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.
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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.
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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Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller
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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
Joseph Heller
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In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.
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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.
Joseph Heller