Quote

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.

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
Giving
Confidence
Things
Sort
Like
Getting
Universe
Give
Straightened
Persons
Deserves
Person
Exactly
Might
Deserve

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I don't believe in miracles because it's been a long time since we've had any.
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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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Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.
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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.
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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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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.
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There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
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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.
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...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
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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.
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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.
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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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I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.
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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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