Top 200 Joseph Heller Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.”

— Joseph Heller

52. “The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?”

— Joseph Heller

53. “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

54. “From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.”

— Joseph Heller

55. “All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.”

— Joseph Heller

56. “He was one of those people with lots of intelligence but no brains.”

— Joseph Heller

57. “Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.”

— Joseph Heller

58. “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

59. “Rise above principal and do what’s right.”

— Joseph Heller

60. “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

61. “Now you’ve given them hope, and they’re unhappy. So the blame is all yours.”

— Joseph Heller

62. “It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.”

— Joseph Heller

63. “I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.”

— Joseph Heller

64. “But how can one be warm alone?”

— Joseph Heller

65. “We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist.”

— Joseph Heller

66. “I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.”

— Joseph Heller

67. “In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.”

— Joseph Heller

68. “When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering.”

— Joseph Heller

69. “There are yawning gulfs into which large chunks of me have fallen. I do not always know where I am at present.”

— Joseph Heller

70. “They couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.”

— Joseph Heller

71. “The years are too short, the days are too long.”

— Joseph Heller

72. “Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.”

— Joseph Heller

73. “Steal Captain Black’s car,” said Yossarian. “That’s what I always do.” “We can’t steal anybody’s car. Since you began stealing the nearest car every time you wanted one, nobody leaves the ignition on.”

— Joseph Heller

74. “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

75. “You have a morbid aversion to dying.”

— Joseph Heller

76. “Men,” Colonel Cargill began in Yossarian’s squadron, measuring his pauses carefully. “You’re American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.”

— Joseph Heller

77. “When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.”

— Joseph Heller

78. “I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.”

— Joseph Heller

79. “If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?”

— Joseph Heller

80. “If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?”

— Joseph Heller

81. “Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.”

— Joseph Heller

82. “Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes.”

— Joseph Heller

83. “I don’t believe in miracles because it’s been a long time since we’ve had any.”

— Joseph Heller

84. “All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.”

— Joseph Heller

85. “He began to wonder with genuine concern just what sort of shithead the Pentagon had foisted on him.”

— Joseph Heller

86. “I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I’m immense. I’m a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I’m a bona fide supraman.”

— Joseph Heller

87. “It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”

— Joseph Heller

88. “But I’m afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees. That is the way the saying goes.”

— Joseph Heller

89. “It was miraculous. Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality. And he had been surviving them for twenty-eight years.”

— Joseph Heller

90. “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

91. “The man who declares that survival at all costs is the end of existence is morally dead, because he’s prepared to sacrifice all other values which give life its meaning. – SIDNEY HOOK.”

— Joseph Heller

92. “Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all.”

— Joseph Heller

93. “You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?”

— Joseph Heller

94. “Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.”

— Joseph Heller

95. “And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about – a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed.”

— Joseph Heller

96. “Why are they going to disappear him?” “I don’t know.” “It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t even good grammar. What the hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?”

— Joseph Heller

97. “Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.”

— Joseph Heller

98. “I’ve come to look upon death the same way I look upon root-canal work. Everyone else seems to get through it all right, so it couldn’t be too difficult for me.”

— Joseph Heller

99. “Well then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?”

— Joseph Heller

100. “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