“He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.”

“But Yossarian knew he was right, because, as he explained to Clevinger, to the best of his knowledge he had never been wrong.”

“This, then, was hunger. This was what his mother had meant when she had said, "We'll all go hongry." He had laughed, for he had thought he had known hunger, and it was faintly pleasant. He knew now that it had been only appetite. This was another thing.”

“It was never what he had done,but always what he could do. And he had chosen to make his living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil”

“He clutched the watch hard in his fist, determined to destroy it, to prove that it couldn't be real. That she hadn't come here because of him, for him.That he hadn't done what he knew he had.”

“But these last months had turned him around and now Gen saw there could be as much virtue in letting go of what you knew as there had ever been in gathering new information. He worked as hard at forgetting as he had ever worked to learn.”