“The Cabbage WhiteThe butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight, Yet has- who knows so well as I?- A just sense of how not to fly: He lurches here and here by guess And God and hope and hopelessness. Even the acrobatic swift Has not his flying-crooked gift.”

“Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their Paradise. No more;—where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.”

“It is beautiful to discover our wings and learn how to fly; flight is a beautiful process. But then to rest on the wings of God as He flies: this is divine.”

“If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies”

“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?”

“Here I am flying high over enemy lines in my Sopwith Camel searching for the Red Baron. Who's that behind me? It's the Red Baron! He has me in his sights! Give my regards to Broadway.”