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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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Where were you born? On a battlefield, [Yossarian] answered. No, no. In what state were you born? In a state of innocence.
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.
Joseph Heller
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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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Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.
Joseph Heller
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And anything worth dying for
Joseph Heller
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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
Joseph Heller
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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
Joseph Heller
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller
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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
Joseph Heller
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where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller
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Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
Joseph Heller
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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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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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.
Joseph Heller
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If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
Joseph Heller
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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.
Joseph Heller
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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
Joseph Heller
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I don't understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
Joseph Heller