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If character is destiny, the good are damned.

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
Good
Damned
Destiny
Character

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.
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where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
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The night was full of horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts.
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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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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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¨ Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them?¨
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Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
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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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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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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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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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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
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I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.
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All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.
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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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
Joseph Heller
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Every writer I know has trouble writing.
Joseph Heller
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Rise above principal and do what's right.
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller