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It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.
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
Ineptitude
Service
Genius
Months
Proud
Made
Blunted
More quotes by Joseph Heller
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
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.
Joseph Heller
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.
Joseph Heller
He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
Joseph Heller
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.
Joseph Heller
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.
Joseph Heller
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.
Joseph Heller
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.
Joseph Heller
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
Joseph Heller
Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
Joseph Heller
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
Joseph Heller
I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
Joseph Heller
All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.
Joseph Heller
Where were you born? On a battlefield, [Yossarian] answered. No, no. In what state were you born? In a state of innocence.
Joseph Heller
I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
Joseph Heller
Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.
Joseph Heller
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
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.
Joseph Heller
I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy
Joseph Heller
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
