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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.

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
Letters
Went
Adverb
Death
Adverbs
Hands
Adjective
Every
Adjectives
Declared
Letter
Passed

More quotes by 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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where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
Joseph Heller
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Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.
Joseph Heller
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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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It's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise...-Bob Slocum
Joseph Heller
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Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?
Joseph Heller
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I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings.
Joseph Heller
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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
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There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
Joseph Heller
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If character is destiny, the good are damned.
Joseph Heller
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
Joseph Heller
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Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
Joseph Heller
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Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
Joseph Heller
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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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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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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For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.
Joseph Heller
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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?
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.
Joseph Heller
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A man's head is his castle.
Joseph Heller