Heller Quotes

Yossarian!!!(?)! ~ Joseph Heller

Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie. ~ Joseph Heller

Deliver onto me a true heart and I will open every door unto thy. ~ Charlene F. Heller

Don't forget to pause and nourish yourself a bit along the way. When you're born to help others sometimes you forget to help yourself. ~ Paula Heller Garland

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed. ~ Joseph Heller

A nagging bitch of a doubt, burrowing painlessly inside a conscience that felt perfectly clear ~ Joseph Heller

Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him. ~ Joseph Heller

I only raped her once," he explained. Yossarian was aghast. "But you killed her, Aarfy! You killed her!" "Oh, I had to do that after I raped her," Aarfy replied in his most condescending manner. ~ Joseph Heller

The American people deserve long-term, forward-thinking policies. ~ Dean Heller

Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch ... ~ Joseph Heller

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, and 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 an 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. ~ Joseph Heller

Serving in the United States Senate has been the greatest privilege of my life. ~ Dean Heller

MY FAMILY unit had increased by one. Janelle was of my blood, and I loved her dearly. Lawson was the brother I'd never had. His mate, Heller, was Lawson's whole world, so of course Heller was now important to me also. But Remi? Remi came before them all. He was my mate. Mine. I would kill for him. I would die for him.
Because of me he might be giving up everything he knew ~ M.A. Church

There's a catch. Catch-22. ~ Joseph Heller

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. ~ Joseph Heller

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

[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for. ~ Joseph Heller

A true prince. One of the finest, least dedicated men in the whole world. ~ Joseph Heller

Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all. ~ Joseph Heller

When I was a kid," Orr replied, "I used to walk around all day with crab apples in my cheeks. One in each cheek."

... A minute passed. "Why?" [Yossarian] found himself forced to ask finally.

Orr tittered triumphantly. "Because they're better than horse chestnuts... When I couldn't get crab apples," Orr continued, "I used horse chestnuts. Horse chestnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape, although the shape doesn't matter a bit."

"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?" Yossarian asked again. "That's what I asked."

"Because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts," Orr answered. "I just told you that."

"Why," swore Yossarian at him approvingly, "you evil-eyed, mechanically aptituded, disaffiliated son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?"

"I didn't," Orr said, "walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab applies in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks. ~ Joseph Heller

ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE:
"Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. One reason, surely, why readers throw down books when they don't contain sufficiently "likable" characters is that their tolerance for any sort of moral challenge - for being asked, say, to sympathize with homeless little boys who are godless and truculent and a bit smelling - has been eroded by too many fairy tales masquerading as adult literature."~ wrote Zoe Heller for Bookends in the Sunday's NY Times Book Review interview ~ Alice Simpson

Sometimes now I think just making it through a day is the point. Practically a triumph, don't you think? If you don't melt down or kill anyone or just give up? If you happen to be kind, or help someone else, or create something beautiful, well, you've really done something to crow about. ~ Peter Heller

Things that are truly innocent don't need to be labelled as such. ~ Zoe Heller

God bless this encyclopedic Mr. Google, whoever he was. ~ Jason Heller

Mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow. ~ Joseph Heller

For most people, honesty is such an unusual departure from their standard modus operandi - such an abherration in their workaday mendacity - that they feel obliged to alert you when a moment of sincerity is coming on. ~ Zoe Heller

People always seemed to think that you stopped believing things in a single, lightning-bolt moment, an instantaneous revelation of loss. For her, at least, the process of disenchantment had been achingly slow. ~ Zoe Heller

He's a cocky SOB. He knew the Nick Adams Stories. Probably a frustrated English major who graduated from college qualified to drive a cab. ~ Peter Heller

You said electronic lock. I didn't know it was a TL-30X6." "I don't like your tone, Merlin. You sound very pessimistic. Maybe even defeatist." "Heller, listen to me. I brought my StrongArm safe cracker diamond-core drill bits, okay? But drilling through one of these, that's a five-hour job at least. That mother's made from inch-and-a-half-thick steel and cobalt-carbide matrix hardplate, okay?" "If you say so. ~ Joseph Finder

Yossarian was in love with the maid in the lime-colored panties because she seemed to be the only woman left he could make love to without falling in love with. ~ Joseph Heller

When I grow up I want to be a little boy. ~ Joseph Heller

The truth, for me, is I do accept everyone.
I believe people are going to be who they are going to be. Moreover, I strongly disagree that it is my place in life to judge who they are. Or to attempt to mold them into whom I believe they should become. ~ Paula Heller Garland

What does the fish remind you of?" "Other fish." "And what do the other fish remind you of?" "Other fish." Major Sanderson sat back disappointedly. "Do you like fish?" "Not especially. ~ Joseph Heller

I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy ~ Joseph Heller

I wondered if all the people I'd been spending so much time with lately online were sad, unfulfilled, lonely, and more than just a bit strange and if it was this and not cards, good luck, bad luck, and winning and losing that bound us so closely together. Were we all in it for the collective insanity and not the money? ~ Ted Heller

What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for. ~ Joseph Heller

The table there was boisterous, people were winning and laughing, but they weren't truly interacting, not like they did online. In that world you see the same people over and over again, every day, but these people gathered around the table, I knew, would never see each other again. It was too transitory and was ultimately meaningless, the difference between an empty one-night stand and an actual relationship, and I didn't want any part of it. ~ Ted Heller

The other is how I could have loved Cristine so fiercely, who was such a world champion bitch, who even came after me once with a kitchen knife. ~ Peter Heller

Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive. ~ Joseph Heller

This is what you left, I thought. The vindication of the choice you made to leave that night. Vindication and horror. Sometimes being right isn't all it's cracked up to be: how many times in the last few years I thought about bitter fruit, how when what you are right about is
well you can't even look at it. ~ Peter Heller

No: Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet. ~ Peter Heller

She acts like she don't like you"
"She doesn't like anyone"
"She likes Capitan Black", Orr reminded.
"That's because he treats her like dirt. Anyone can get a girl that way ~ Joseph Heller

Ve used for years. When the rubber wears out I've got more. On the last ~ Peter Heller

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. ~ Joseph Heller

How can I look so real everyday, when really I'm just a cardboard cut-out image of myself-lamenated in coats of artifical happiness with shiny plastic all around- so quite I should be a mime-
I wrap my arms around myself when I go out in the wind because I don't know how to make sure that I won't blow away- and I'm standing with my eyes closed so I won't have to see the ground when I fall... ~ Elizabeth Heller

Today we no longer fear technology. It's no longer a question of assimilation. What remains to be seen is what we are about to become. ~ Jason Heller

But how can one be warm alone? ~ Joseph Heller

A man's head is his castle. ~ Joseph Heller

One cannot escape their fate, but their path may be altered, potentially resulting in a different outcome. Some consider it divine intervention, or a miracle. Others consider it to be coincidence or happenstance. In some cases both are true, but there are always exceptions. Mere seconds can prove to be crucial components when the result of one's fate is hanging in the balance. Often times a minute amount of influence is all it takes. Planting a seed of doubt or inspiring hope when all seems to be lost. ~ A.C. Heller

Without the right attitude, a business with everything going for it will fail. ~ Robert Heller

What would you change about yourself if you could change anything? ~ Paula Heller Garland

Like all the other officers at Group Headquarters except Major Danby, Colonel Cathcart was infused with the democratic spirit: he believed that all men were created equal, and he therefore spurned all men outside Group Headquarters with equal fervor. ~ Joseph Heller

I see the new couple holding hands, smiling so carelessly at each other. I want to scream "Stop!" to them. I want to warn them what happens when you fall in love. You get hurt. It will take a while, A few months, or if you're really lucky a year. But love, it falters. It fails just like everything else, it inevitably breaks. ~ Elizabeth Heller

It is okay for people you love to leave. For them to come and go. She taught it to me over and over. ~ Peter Heller

Never know how much of a hurry you might be in later. ~ Peter Heller

My fish dream is a sex dream. ~ Joseph Heller

When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?' ~ Joseph Heller

In the office in which I work there are five people of whom I am afraid. Each of these five people is afraid of four people (excluding overlaps), for a total of twenty, and each of these twenty people is afraid of six people, making a total of one hundred and twenty people who are feared by at least one person. Each of these one hundred and twenty people is afraid of the other one hundred and nineteen, and all of these one hundred and forty-five people are afraid of the twelve men at the top who helped found and build the company and now own and direct it. ~ Joseph Heller

Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions. He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat. ~ Joseph Heller

Too - about how crazy hard is the journey of getting to where you have never been. ~ Peter Heller

Can you fall in love through a rifle scope? ~ Peter Heller

For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive. ~ Joseph Heller

Things like pornography perpetuates this idea that women are just there as objects of male desire and are not complex people with their own sexuality and humanity. ~ Marielle Heller

What a fool. In purgatory there is really nothing else to be. I ~ Peter Heller

Twitter, Facebook are so different from where I began. It's like a fire that takes off ... I'm reading everybody's Twitter. ~ Randee Heller

I wonder what kind of person would come out if I ever did erase all my inhibitions at once, what kind of being is bottled up inside me now. ~ Joseph Heller

In a way the C.I.D. man was pretty lucky, because outside the hospital the war was still going on.
Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives. There was no end in sight. ~ Joseph Heller

I went at one stage to turn on the radio, but he glared
at me so ferociously that I hurriedly lean't back in my
seat and looked out the window instead.
- heller 1 ~ J.D. Nixon

Maybe I am senile already and people are too kind to tell me. People are not kind and would tell me. (Maybe people have told me, and I'm too senile to remember). ~ Joseph Heller

[ ... ]One pretends that manners are the formalisation of basic kindness and consideration, but a great deal of the time they're simply aesthetics dressed up as moral principles, aren't they? ~ Zoe Heller

I couldn't see tying myself down with a middle-aged woman with four children, even though the woman was my wife and the children were my own. ~ Joseph Heller

It's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise ... -Bob Slocum ~ Joseph Heller

It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude. ~ Joseph Heller

I believed you, just for a second, until I looked into your eyes... ~ Elizabeth Heller

And between us now there is this continual underground struggle over something trivial and nebulous that won't abate and has lasted nearly as long as the two of us have known each other. I love you. ~ Joseph Heller

God put me on earth for a few specific reasons. Being your mom was the most important and I I thank Him everyday for the opportunity and gift. ~ Paula Heller Garland

Somewhere between sanity and madness lays a fine line, for some it is a tightrope walked daily, a fight for balance to be won or lost. That fight is lost one of two ways. Some simply lose their balance and fall, others are pushed. ~ Zoe Heller

All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive. ~ Joseph Heller

In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure. ~ Joseph Heller

Just pass the work I assign along to somebody else and trust to luck. We call that delegation of responsibility. ~ Joseph Heller

What does that look like to you?" he said. "A forgery." He shrugged, snorted quietly. "That's right, Heller. We have teams of forgers at work creating phony documents just for you." His sarcasm was subtle. "Now do you see? Starting to recognize your brother's modus operandi? Steal a bunch of money, then, when you realize that you've messed with the wrong guys, do the cowardly thing and run? Wonder where he got that from." "Screw you." I no longer felt bad about making up that story about his cigars. "Oh, believe me, it's the truth. Maybe to Victor Heller's sons that's nothing more than loose change you find under your sofa cushions. But not to me. And certainly not to Allen Granger. ~ Joseph Finder

Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe. ~ Joseph Heller

I blinked, and the world exploded with data. Images, scanned documents and photographs, a whirlwind of numbers, under-the-table deals, and whispered words. ~ Jason Heller

Pa smiled an inward smile. He always took delight in the pure souls of the earth, wherever they shone. ~ Peter Heller

You could love someone so strongly, for so long, and still forget - until the memories returned. ~ Jason Heller

Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. ~ Joseph Heller

If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate? ~ Joseph Heller

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective. ~ Joseph Heller

felt my heart might just burst. Bursting is different than breaking. Like there is no way to contain how beautiful. Not ~ Peter Heller

Their detectors, like everything else about them and their small, shrinking world, were always looking for the wrong weapons, Sem thought as he began to sharpen his pencil. ~ Jason Heller

If you can concentrate on listening to another person - without your own viewpoint getting in the way, without judging or discarding or thinking of a response - for the simple purpose of taking in someone else's reality, you start to understand her. ~ L. Alison Heller

It isn't necessary to call me Father, the chaplain explained. I'm an Anabaptist. ~ Joseph Heller

Why would he want to put a stain on a white sheet? Why would he want to taint a love that has never been crushed? Why would he want to see her intoxicated then leave her in the morning to fend for herself? Why would he want to ruin innocence? ~ Elizabeth Heller

Yossarian marveled that children could suffer such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He took for granted that they did submit so stoically. If not, he reasoned, the custom would certainly have died, for no craving for wealth or immortality could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children. ~ Joseph Heller

Trying to evade the people who frighten us. We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, changing our partner and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead. ~ Joseph Heller

Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"
"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.
"Every one of whom?"
"Every one of whom do you think?"
"I haven't any idea."
"Then how do you know they aren't?"
"Because ... " Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.
Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all. ~ Joseph Heller

The smartest people in Washington are the political reporters. They write about their inferiors. ~ Joseph Heller

I have a feeling that someone nearby is soon going to find out something about me that will mean the end, although I can't imagine what that something is. ~ Joseph Heller

The Germans will be beaten in a few months. And Japan will be beaten a few months after that. If I were to give up my life now, it wouldn't be for my country. It would be for Cathcart and Korn. So I'm turning my bombsight in for the duration. From now on I'm thinking only of me. ~ Joseph Heller

And he knew something else as a social evolutionist that he might stress someday in his 'Every Change Is for the Worse' should he ever find time to write it: Gold knew that the most advanced and penultimate stage of a civilization was attained when chaos masqueraded as order, and he knew we were already there. ~ Joseph Heller