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.
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.
Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
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.
The night was filled with horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves. What a welcome sight a leper must have been!
All over the world, boys on every side of bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives.
I lost my balls! Aarfy, I lost my balls!
I see everything twice!
He was a spry, suave and very precise general who knew the circumference of the equator and always wrote “enhanced” when he meant “increased.” He was a prick.
It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.
I’m a regular supra man.
I wonder what kind of person would come out if I ever did erase all my inhibitions at once, what kind of being is bottled up inside me now.
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.
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.
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.
He could not make them shut-up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed.
It isn’t necessary to call me Father, the chaplain explained. I’m an Anabaptist.
They couldn’t him because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Dreirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees. He was miracle ingredient Z-247.
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.
You pompous, rotund, neighborly, vacuous, complacent... – Yossarian.