Catch-22 Quotes

He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.

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

It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.

Why are they going to disappear him?'I don't know.'It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.

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

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.

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.

Be glad you're even alive.'Be furious you're going to die.

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?

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 every human tragedy.

Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.

Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

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

What do you do when it rains?"The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.

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.

You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate.""Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.

Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity trust upon them.

I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings.

That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left.

Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.

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.

You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.

He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret

While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

Yossarian decided to change the subject. "Now you're changing the subject." he pointed out diplomatically. "I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.

I'm not running away from my responsibilities. I'm running to them. There's nothing negative about running away to save my life.

I've flown over seventy goddam combat missions. Don't talk to me about fighting to save my country. I've been fighting all along to save my country. Now I'm going to fight a little to save myself. The country's not in danger any more, but I am.

He was pinched perspiringly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope.

In short, he was a dope. He often looked to Yossarian like one of those people hanging around modern museums with both eyes together on one side of a face. It was an illusion, of course, generated by Clevinger's predilection for staring fixedly at one side of a question and never seeing the other side at all.

Doc Daneeka was Yossarian's friend and would do just about nothing in his power to help him.

The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red, pear-shaped, plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incarnadine symbol of his own ineptitude.

Colonel Cathcart was impervious to absolutes. He could measure his own progress only in relationship to others, and his idea of excellence was to do something at least as well as all the men his own age who were doing the same thing even better.

He could not make them shut-up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed.

Man was matter. Drop him out of 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.

Yossarian was in love with the maid in the lime-colored panties because she seemed to be the only woman left he could make love to without falling in love with.

I've always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others.

I don’t, she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. "That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

There was no way of really knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of really knowing anything.

I’d be the last colonel in the world to order you to go to that U.S.O. show and have a good time, but I want every one of you who isn’t sick enough to be in a hospital to go to that U.S.O. show right now and have a good time, and that’s an order!

Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale, sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence because he brought to mind all the pale, sad, sickly children in Italy that same night who needed haircuts and needed shoes and socks.

He's back! He's back!""Who's back?" shouted someone else. "Who is it?""What does it mean? What should we do?""Are we on fire?""Get up and run, damn it! Everybody get up and run!

The only end in sight was Yossarian's own, and he might have remained in the hospital until doomsday had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile cracked forever across the front of his face like the brim of a black ten-gallon hat.

...it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.