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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.

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
Work
Difficult
Way
Death
Canal
Else
Canals
Seems
Root
Look
Roots
Come
Couldn
Looks
Upon
Right
Everyone

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mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
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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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I can't start writing until I have a closing line.
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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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¨ 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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Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.
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He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.
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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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All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.
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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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If character is destiny, the good are damned.
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Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
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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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The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
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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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I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
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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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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.
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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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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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