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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.

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
Enigmatic
Anonymous
Charge
Nobody
Even

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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
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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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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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Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)
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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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In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.
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Everybody is as unstable as water.
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Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.
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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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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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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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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.
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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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He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
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Erogenous zones are either everywhere or nowhere.
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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
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Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
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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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Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?
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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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