Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.

— Joseph Heller

Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs divorce fornication bullying travel meditation medication depression neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.

— Joseph Heller

That goddam stunted, red-faced, big-cheeked, apple-cheeked, curly headed, midget asked,, google-eyed, undersized, grinning, buck-toothed rat!!" Yossarian sputtered.~ Catch-22

— Joseph Heller

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.

— Joseph Heller

The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish.

— Joseph Heller

The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. 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.

— Joseph Heller

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.

— Joseph Heller

The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Athwart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.

— Joseph Heller

The important thing is to keep them pledging," he explained to his cohorts. "It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean.

— Joseph Heller

There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.

— Joseph Heller