Quote

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

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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
Duty
Wants
Crazy
Saying
Anyone
Combat
Really
Catch
Ground
Rule

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
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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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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
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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
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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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Insanity is contagious.
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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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I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning
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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
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In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.
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Gold was not altogether certain what, anatomically, a gorge was, but he knew that his was rising.
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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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I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings.
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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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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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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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It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.
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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'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.
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