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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
Complaining
Suffer
Winning
Suffering
War
Must
Going
People

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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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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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Everybody is as unstable as water.
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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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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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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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There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
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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 God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
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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 can't start writing until I have a closing line.
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It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.
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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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For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions. He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat.
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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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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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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