“He's a gentle soul,' he told her. 'I can't see him put down, he wouldn't hurt a fly.' Indeed Boris wouldn't hurt a fly because in general flies were too fast for him.”

“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?”

“As he looked up at the clouds or down at the precipice, he realized that this woman was the most important thing in his life; that she was the explanation, the sole reason for the existence of those rocks, that sky, that winter. If she were not there with him, it wouldn't matter if all the angels of heaven came flying down to comfort him--Paradise would make no sense.”

“He told me he wouldn't hurt... Charlie. He lied to me.”

“Stagolee was, undoubtedly and without question, the baddest nigger that ever lived. Stagolee was so bad that the flies wouldn't even fly around his head in the summertime, and snow wouldn't fall on his house in the winter. He was bad, jim. ”

“I told her why we are here. I told you wouldn't hurt Jack.""The coffin?" I smiled. I couldn't help it. He was a 'jack in a box.”