Joseph Heller: Trending quotes

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Joseph Heller: 264 quotes6 likes

“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.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“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.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

Shakespeare's Othello said it first.
God Knows (1984)

“I said it again as a German might. "Rabinovitz. Ich bin Lew Rabinowitz, LR, von Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. Du Kennst?" And then I spoke Yiddish. "Und ich bin ein Yid. Farshtest?" And then in English. "I am a Jew. Understand?" And then in my fractured German. "Ich bin Jude. Verstehst?" Now they didn't know where to look, but they did not want to look at me. I've got blue eyes that can turn into slits of ice, Claire still tells me, and a pale, European skin that can turn red fast when I laugh hard or get mad, and I wasn't sure they believed me.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961), pp. 122

“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?”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“Women don't suffer from penis envy. Men do.”

Joseph Heller book Something Happened

Something Happened (1974)

“Didn't I once observe that there is nothing new under the sun?”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“The end result of experiencing terror and injury is not an increase in compassion, but a tendency toward callousness.”

Joseph Heller

Cited as being from Catch-22 but really from the discussion, for Chapter 26, in CliffsNotes on Heller’s Catch-22 https://www.amazon.com/CliffsNotes-Hellers-Catch-22-Cliffsnotes-Literature-ebook/dp/B00BOE144M. <br class="br">Disputed

“He could never decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he had found it impossible to do both simultaneously.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961), pp.53-54. Dell 1962 edition. (First use of "furgle" in the United States.)

“But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

“Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

“The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

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

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“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.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“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.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?"”

Joseph Heller

As quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations (1997) edited by Peter Kemp, p. 303

“I imagine that God Himself frequently wants to feel like a king. Why else would He create the world?”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“"Let someone else get killed!" "Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" "Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

“The yellow moon turned orange and was soon red as the setting sun.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961), pp. 462

“Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)