Joseph Heller

“Because it's better to die on one's feet that+n live on one's knees," Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty convivtion. "I guess you've heard that saying before.""Yes, I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees.”

“People have a right to do anything that's not forbidden by law, and there's no law against lying to you.”

“While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it.”

“His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbours sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counselled one and all, and everyone said “Amen.”

“And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed.”

“They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable. They were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one. They had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose pictures were already standing on the rough cement mantelpiece of Orr's fireplace. They had ridden in speedboats and played tennis. They had been horseback riding. One had once been to bed with an older woman. They knew the same poeple in different parts of the country and had gone to school with each other's cousins.”

“Mi problema con la soledad es que la compañía de otros nunca ha sido una cura para ella.”

“Oh, they're there all right," Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby's eyes after Yossarian's fist fight in the officers' club, "although he probably doesn't even know it. That's why he can't see things as they really are." "How come he doesn't know it?" inquired Yossarian. "Because he's got flies in his eyes," Orr explained with exaggerated patience. "How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?”

“i know at last what i want to be when i grow up. when i grow up i want to be a little boy.”

“He was like a man who had grown frozen with horror once and had never come completely unthawed.”

“Only a fraction of his countrymen would give up their lives to win it (the war), and it was not his ambition to be among them. To die or not to die, that was the question, and Clevinger grew limp trying to answer it. History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.”

“I really do admire you a bit. 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." - Colonel Korn”

“Clădiri şi forme fără contur zburau pe lînga el fără zgomot, purtate parcă implacabil pe suprafaţa unui val puternic, atemporal.”

“- E piciorul meu.- Ba nu e deloc piciorul tau! replica sora Cramer. Acest picior apartine guvernului SUA.”

“Ba nu e deloc piciorul tau! replica sora Cramer.Acest picior apartine guvernului SUA.”

“Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.”

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

“The only end in sight was Yossarian's own, and he might have remained in the hospital until doomsday had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile cracked forever across the front of his face like the brim of a black ten-gallon hat.”

“Se trezi clipind din cauza unei ușoare dureri de cap și când deschise ochii văzu o lume clocotind într-un haos în care totul era în ordinea firească.”

“Ochelarii negri aveau rame mari, rosii. Mustata neagra falsa apartinea unui flasnetar multicolor si maiorul Major le-a purtat pe amandoua la un meci de baschet intr-o zi, cand a simtit ca nu-si mai suporta singuratatea.”

“Unii se nasc mediocri, altii devin mediocri, iar altora li se impune mediocritatea.”

“Stia totul despre literatura, in afara de modul in care se putea bucura de ea.”

“They’re not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?”“Who else will go?”

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

“There was one catch, and that was Catch-22.”

“His response to them [women] as sexual beings was one of frenzied worship and idolatry. They were lovely, satisfying, maddening manifestations of the miraculous, instruments of pleasure too powerful to be measured, too keen to be endured, and too exquisite to be intended for employment by base, unworthy man.”

“I used to think it was immoral to be unhappy.”

“I've always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others.”

“He wanted to write urgent love letters to her all day long and crowd the endless pages with desperate, uninhibited confessions of his humble worship and need with careful instructions for administering artificial respiration. He wanted to pour out to her in torrents of self-pity all his unbearable loneliness and despair and warn her never to leave the boric acid or the aspirin in reach of the children or to cross a street against the traffic light. He did not wish to worry her.”

“It's only that I feel an injustice has been committed. Why should I have somebody else's malaria and you have my dose of clap?”

“They couldn't him because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Dreirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees. He was miracle ingredient Z-247.”

“He made so many people uneasy. Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.”

“All you've got to do is lie there a few minutes and die a little.”

“Shooting skeet eight hours a month was excellent training for them. It trained them to shoot skeet.”

“Doc Daneeka was Yossarian's friend and would do just about nothing in his power to help him.”

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

“There were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater job of it. They couldn’t dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was there she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside of the hospital. They did not blow-up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian’s tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane.“I’m cold,” Snowden had whimpered. “I’m cold.”“There, there,” Yossarian had tried to comfort him. “There, there.”They didn’t take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done. They didn’t explode into blood and clotted matter. They didn’t drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. They didn’t get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, blugeoned to death with axes by parents or children, or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain’t. There were no famines or floods. Children didn’t suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn’t stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry.”

“Лейтенанту Шейскопфу отчаянно хотелось завоевать первое место на параде, и, обдумывая, как это сделать, он просиживал за столом чуть не до рассвета, в то время как его жена, охваченная любовным трепетом, дожидалась его в постели, перелистывая заветные страницы Крафта-Эббинга.Муж в это время читал книги по строевой подготовке. Он закупал коробками шоколадных солдатиков и переставлял их на столе, пока они не начинали таять в руках, и тогда он принимался за пластмассовых ковбоев, выстраивая их по двенадцати в ряд. Этих ковбоев он выписал по почте на вымышленную фамилию и днем держал под замком, подальше от чужих глаз. Альбом с анатомическими рисунками Леонардо да Винчи стал его настольной книгой. Однажды вечером он почувствовал, что ему необходима живая модель, и приказал жене промаршировать по комнате.— Голой?! — с надеждой в голосе спросила она.Лейтенант Шейскопф в отчаянии схватился за голову. Он проклинал судьбу за то, что она связала его с этой женщиной, не способной подняться выше похоти и понять душу благородного мужчины, который геройски ведет поистине титаническую борьбу во имя недосягаемого идеала.— Почему ты меня никогда не постегаешь кнутом, милый? — обиженно надув губки, однажды ночью спросила жена.— Потому что у меня нет на это времени, — нетерпеливо огрызнулся он. — Нет времени, ясно? Неужели ты не знаешь, что у меня парад на носу?”

“That goddam stunted, red-faced, big-cheeked, apple-cheeked, curlyheaded, midget assed, , google-eyed, undersized, grinning, buck-toothed rat!!" Yossarian sputtered.~ Catch-22”

“Like hell he was," said the first C.I.D. man. "I'm the C.I.D. man arround here." Major Major could barely recognize him because he was wearing a faded maroon corduroy bathrobe with open seams under both arms, linty flannel pajamas, & worn house slippers with one flapping sole.”

“In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure.”

“There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain’s revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects filled him with equal fear and depression. It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu. It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of and illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery.”

“The dead man in Yossarian's tent was a pest, and Yossarian didn't like him, even though he had never seen him. Having him laying around all day annoyed Yossarian so much that he had gone to the orderly room several times to complain to Sergeant Towser, who refused to admit that the dead man even existed, which, of course, he no longer did.”

“Who will marry me? No one wants a girl who is not a virgin.""I will. I'll marry you.""Ma non posso sposarti." "And why can't you marry me?""Perché sei pazzo!""And why am I crazy?""Perché vuoi sposarmi.""Because I want to marry you. Carina, ti amo," he explained, and he drew her gently back down to the pillow. "Te amo molto.""Tu sei pazzo," she murmured in reply, flattered. "Perché?""Because you say you love me. How can you love a girl who is not a virgin?""Because I can't marry you."She bolted right up again in a threatening rage. "Why can't you marry me?" she demanded, ready to clout him again if he gave an uncomplimentary reply. "Just because I am not a virgin?""No, no darling. Because you're crazy.”

“All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.”

“I’m cold,' Snowden said softly, 'I’m cold.''You’re going to be all right, kid,' Yossarian reassured him with a grin. 'You’re going to be all right.''I’m cold,' Snowden said again in a frail, childlike voice. 'I’m cold.''There, there,' Yossarian said, because he did not know what else to say. 'There, there.''I’m cold,' Snowden whimpered. 'I’m cold.''There, there. There, there.”

“There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.”

“It sure is a pleasure not having Flume around in the mess hall any more. No more of that 'Pass the salt, Walt.'""Or 'Pass the bread, Fred.'""Or 'Shoot me a beet, Pete.”

“The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”

“I see everything twice!”