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I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.

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
Examined
Thoroughly
Discovered
Service
Military
Pretty
Funny
Unfit

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.
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Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
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Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence? Yes, sir, it has. Then why do you do it? To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.
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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.
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I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
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Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?
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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.
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History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.
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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.
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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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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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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller
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Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.
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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 body stores the trauma of our lives in muscular rigidity, thereby keeping us stuck in the past. When we release the tension in the body and align ourselves with gravity, we take a new stand in life. This allows us to be at ease with ourselves and in harmony in our relationship to others and to our planet.
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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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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
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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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