Catch-22 Quotes
- He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. - View Quote Details on He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose…
- Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Page 94 (paperback). - View Quote Details on Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and…
- He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders told him to do, he did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until the next day what he could do the day before, and he never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the Army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He always turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his neighbour’s ass. In fact, he loved his neighbour and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major’s elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist. Page 96 (paperback). - View Quote Details on He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever…
- “…the chaplain was ready now to capitulate to despair entirely but was restrained by the memory of his wife, whom he loved and missed so pathetically with such sensual and exalted ardor, and by the lifelong trust he had placed in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, humane, universal, anthropomorphic, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God, which had begun to waver.” Chapter 25, pg. 285 - View Quote Details on “…the chaplain was ready now to capitulate to despair entirely…
- “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.” Chapter 8, pg. 75 - View Quote Details on “History did not demand Yossarian’s premature demise, justice could be…
- (last lines:) “The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.” - View Quote Details on (last lines:) “The knife came down, missing him by inches,…
- “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.” Chapter 3, pg. 38 - View Quote Details on “He had decided to live forever or die in the…
- Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the officers’ club one night to kid with him about the new Lepage gun that the Germans had moved in. “What Lepage gun?” colonel Korn inquired with curiosity. “The new three hundred and forty four millimeter Lepage glue gun,” Yossarian answered. “It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.” Chapter 12, p 134 - 135 - View Quote Details on Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the officers’…
- “‘Catch-22…says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.
“‘But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.’
“‘But they don’t say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That’s the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you’d still have to fly them, or you’d be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.’” Chapter 6, pg. 58 - View Quote Details on “‘Catch-22…says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer… - “Run away to Sweden, Yossarian. And I’ll stay here and persevere. Yes. I’ll persevere. I’ll nag and badger Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn every time I see them. I’m not afraid.” Chapter 42, pg. 461 - View Quote Details on “Run away to Sweden, Yossarian. And I’ll stay here and…
- “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.” Chapter 25, pg. 278-279 - View Quote Details on “It was possible that there were other vus of which…
- “As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.” Chapter 2, page 26. (’Vintage’ edition Chapter 2, pg. 19) - View Quote Details on “As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which…
- “Clevinger was a troublemaker and a wise guy. Lieutenant Scheisskopf knew that Clevinger might cause even more trouble if he wasn’t watched. Yesterday it was the cadet officers; tomorrow it might be the world. Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times. Such men were dangerous, and even the new cadet officers whom Clevinger had helped into office were eager to give damning testimony against him. The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with.” Chapter 8, pg. 80 - View Quote Details on “Clevinger was a troublemaker and a wise guy. Lieutenant Scheisskopf…
- “When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don’t see heaven, or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and human tragedy.” Chapter 42, pg. 455 - View Quote Details on “When I look up, I see people cashing in. I…
- “Yossarian’s heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was all right and they had no excuse for turning back.” Chapter 14, pg. 150 - View Quote Details on “Yossarian’s heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was…
- “I’ll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning.” Chapter 8, pg. 80 - View Quote Details on “I’ll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee…
- The end result of experiencing terror and injury is not an increase in compassion, but a tendency toward callousness. - View Quote Details on The end result of experiencing terror and injury is not…
- “‘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.’” Chapter 23, pg. 247 - View Quote Details on “‘What is a country? A country is a piece of…
- “You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?” Chapter 4, pg. 38 - View Quote Details on “You’re inches away from death every time you go on…
- “You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!” Chapter 27, pg. 309 - View Quote Details on “You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions…
- “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. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Chapter 34 page 363 - View Quote Details on “The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition,…
- “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 Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.” Chapter 12, pg. 134 - View Quote Details on “The enemy,” retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, “is anybody who’s…
- To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else. Page 81 (paperback). - View Quote Details on To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd…
- “an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him.” Chapter 2, pg. 29 (’Vintage’ edition - Chapter 2, pg 23) - View Quote Details on “an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a…
- “He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. 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.” Chapter 41, pg. 440 - View Quote Details on “He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he…
- “And looking very superior, he tossed down on the table a photostatic copy of a piece of V mail in which everything but the salutation “Dear Mary” had been blocked out and on which the censoring officer had written, ‘I long for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.’” Chapter 36, pg. 393 - View Quote Details on “And looking very superior, he tossed down on the table…
- “that’s the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority.” Chapter 29, pg. 335 - View Quote Details on “that’s the way things go when you elevate mediocre people…
- The chaplain had “failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a stronger personality. It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low.” Chapter 20, pg. 208 - View Quote Details on The chaplain had “failed miserably, had choked up once again…
- “I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.” In the original version the Chaplain is R O Shipman - View Quote Details on “I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S…
- “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.” Chapter 24, pg. 259 - View Quote Details on “This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own…
- “With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway.” Chapter 9, pg. 111 - View Quote Details on “With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it…
About Catch-22
Catch-22 is a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller, an anti-war novel and a general critique of bureaucracy. The novel’s title is from a catch, or snag, described in the quote from chapter 5 below. The phrase “catch-22″ almost immediately entered common usage for that kind of conundrum or self-defeating logic (see wikipedia catch-22 logic ).
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