Joseph Heller: Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)

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.

Joseph Heller

wisdom truth inspirational

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

Joseph Heller

growing-up inspirational children

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

Joseph Heller

earth civilization mean

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

Joseph Heller

failure running long

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

Joseph Heller

rights exercise country

The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

Joseph Heller

insane depression men

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Joseph Heller

young-writers trouble writing

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.

Joseph Heller

failing answers might

History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.

Joseph Heller

electric-motors light country

[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Joseph Heller

educate people

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. 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

crazy would-be want

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

Joseph Heller

wisdom suicide death

The laws of nature are only as immutable as the minds which promote them. Ignorance of the law is 9/10ths of the law. Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

Joseph Heller

ignorance law mean

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

Joseph Heller

failure self men

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

successful lying people

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

fighting war country

There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.

Joseph Heller

wanted might people

¨ Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them?¨

Joseph Heller

winning war people

...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.

Joseph Heller

worth-living dying

Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts - and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?

Joseph Heller

crazy men book