Joseph Heller Quotes

No one who ever wants praise will be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And therefore I still don’t know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die. - View Quote Details on No one who ever wants praise will be satisfied with…
Vanity. What’s wrong with vanity? It doesn’t satisfy. - View Quote Details on Vanity. What’s wrong with vanity? It doesn’t satisfy.
Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. - View Quote Details on Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him…
I’m not even sure we really had that much need for God as much as we did seem to have a need to believe in Him. - View Quote Details on I’m not even sure we really had that much need…
If the chance ever comes to you to fall in love, grab it, every time. You might always live to regret it, but you won’t find anything to beat it, and you won’t know if it will come to you once more. - View Quote Details on If the chance ever comes to you to fall in…
God does have this self-serving habit of putting all blame for His own mistakes on other people, doesn’t He? He picks someone arbitrarily, unbidden, right out of the blue so to speak, and levies upon them tasks of monumental difficulty for which we don’t always measure up in every particular, then charges US for HIS error in selecting imperfectly. He tends to forget that we are no more infallible than He is. - View Quote Details on God does have this self-serving habit of putting all blame…
I tend to be a skeptic, I don’t like dogmatic approaches by anybody. I don’t like intolerance and a dogmatic person is intolerant of other people. It’s one of the reasons I keep a distance from all religious beliefs. I think in this country and in Australia too there’s a late intolerance in most religions, an intolerance, a part that could easily become persecutions. - View Quote Details on I tend to be a skeptic, I don’t like dogmatic…
The years are too short, the days are too long. - View Quote Details on The years are too short, the days are too long.
Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb! - View Quote Details on Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery or simple bad luck. - View Quote Details on Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going…
The last thing any sensible human being should want is immortality. As it is, life lasts too long for most of us. - View Quote Details on The last thing any sensible human being should want is…
When I grow up I want to be a little boy. - View Quote Details on When I grow up I want to be a little…
He [God] owes me an apology too- at the very least. I’m not saying I shouldn’t have been punished for those sins I committed. I’m saying that the punishments he chose were inhuman. I wonder what favor I’d want. I think I may be afraid to ask for it. I’m afraid He won’t grant it. I’m more afraid that He will. Wouldn’t it be tragic to find out that He really has been here all this time? - View Quote Details on He [God] owes me an apology too- at the very…
How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? - View Quote Details on How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being…
The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth. Don’t you know history? - View Quote Details on The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth…
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. - View Quote Details on He had decided to live forever or die in the…
Women my wife’s age with broken marriages take up robustly with fellows much younger than themselves, sometimes boys, and their husbands don’t like that part of it at all. (It’s a means they have of really sticking it to us. The husbands can do without the money and kids. But they can’t abide their wives’ humping a younger dick and letting everyone know.) - View Quote Details on Women my wife’s age with broken marriages take up robustly…
The wise man dies no better or more wisely than the fool. In what way, then, is the wise man wise? - View Quote Details on The wise man dies no better or more wisely than…
You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail. - View Quote Details on You know, that might be the answer - to act…
I am arrogant enough to wish I were modest as he and modest enough to know that this is arrogance. - View Quote Details on I am arrogant enough to wish I were modest as…
Everybody is as unstable as water. - View Quote Details on Everybody is as unstable as water.
Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy. - View Quote Details on Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his…
He who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed. - View Quote Details on He who steals my purse steals trash, but he that…
Love is potent stuff, isn’t it? - View Quote Details on Love is potent stuff, isn’t it?
Now THERE’S a hollow state to be in, isn’t it- to believe in God and get no sign that He’s there. - View Quote Details on Now THERE’S a hollow state to be in, isn’t it-…
Nothing fails like success. - View Quote Details on Nothing fails like success.
If God was dead, how could I feel this bad? - View Quote Details on If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likeable. In three days no one could stand him. - View Quote Details on The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likeable…
Gold was opposed to segregation and equally opposed to integration. Certainly he did not believe that women or homosexuals should suffer persecution or discrimination. On the other hand, he was privately opposed to all equal rights amendments, for he certainly did not want members of either group associating with him on levels of equality or familiarity. - View Quote Details on Gold was opposed to segregation and equally opposed to integration…
“From now on I’m thinking only of me.” Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: “But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way?”
“Then,” said Yossarian, “I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?” - View Quote Details on “From now on I’m thinking only of me.” Major Danby…
God is a murderer, imagine that. I told you I had the best story in the Bible, didn’t I? I have always known that He was. Sooner or later He murders us all, doesn’t He, and we go back to the dust from which we came. So I’m no longer scared to defy him. All He can do is kill me. - View Quote Details on God is a murderer, imagine that. I told you I…
This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him…Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made. - View Quote Details on This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own…
How ironic the difference between me and my young son Absalom, between his soliciting the soundest means of overtaking me and having my life, while I was cudgeling my brains for a way to spare his. “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom,” were my mawkish words to my commanders as their men trooped past me toward the positions they would take up in the field outside the wood of Ephraim for the battle in which he would die. “Beware that none touch the young man Absalom,” I urged like a fool. No, not like a fool, but like a fond, doting father who will overlook and excuse everything in the child he loves best, and who breaks his heart. And in that singular disparity in our desires abides his lasting victory over me: I loved him and he did not love me. - View Quote Details on How ironic the difference between me and my young son…