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In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.

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
Predictably
Accidental
Worked
Failure
Running
Else
Thing
Long

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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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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
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There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.
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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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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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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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He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.
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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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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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...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.
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He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret
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For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.
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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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If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
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Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
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A man's head is his castle.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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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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The laws of nature are only as immutable as the minds which promote them. Ignorance of the law is 9/10ths of the law. Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
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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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