418 Quotes by Joseph Heller

"You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail."

"To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else."

"I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life."

"Who is Spain?Why is Hitler?Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"

"The night was filled with 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, like a victim through a prison full of thieves. What a welcome sight a leper must have been!"

"He was one of those people with lots of intelligence but no brains"

"Her own body was such a familiar and unremarkable thing to her that she was puzzled by the convulsive ecstasy men could take from it, by the intense and amusing need they had merely to touch it, to reach out urgently and press it, squeeze it, pinch it, rub it. She did not understand Yossarian's lust; but she was willing to take is word for it."

"They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits."

"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......."

"With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway."