"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. 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. 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."

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

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

"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?"

"The only wisdom I think I've attained is the wisdom to be skeptical of other people's ideology and other people's arguments. I tend to be a skeptic, I don't like dogmatic approaches by anybody. I don't like intolerance and a dogmatic person is intolerant of other people. It's one of the reasons I keep a distance from all religious beliefs. I think in this country and in Australia too there's a late intolerance in most religions, an intolerance, a part that could easily become persecutions. We have some ultra-orthodox Jewish sects here in New York and I fear them as much as I would fear a Nazi organisation."

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

"Bellow (what a wonderful novel Humboldt's Gift is), Updike and Heller started very differently, but their own lives are octopuses taking up more and more space in their books: their divorces etc."

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

"There’s a big cocktail party on Martha’s Vineyard. Someone comes up to this writer, I think it’s Joseph Heller, and says, “Joe, see that guy over there? He’s a hedge fund manager, and he made more money yesterday than you made on all the books you have ever published.” Heller looks over, pauses, and says, “Yeah, but I have something he’ll never have: enough.”"

"She knew Pota had a larger respect for personal privacy than he did for God, Congress, or the U.S. Constitution and never looked at anything there except, occasionally, for the remote control to the television set."

"Anyone seeking public office was not worthy to hold it."

"God had no need for Ecclesiastes to acquaint Him with vanity."

"There is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete and everybody is capable of everything"

"Fools hate knowledge"

"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."

"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."

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

"The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth. Don't you know history?"

"Vanity. What's wrong with vanity? It doesn't satisfy."

"No one lusting for blood is ever innocent. Or satisfied. I have not been innocent. Or satisfied. Just as the man who wants silver will not be satisfied with silver, a man who wants the blood of another will not be satisfied with having that blood, nor the woman with jewels be satisfied with jewels, and the man who wants women will not be satisfied with women. Don't try telling me different. Haven't I looked about me in the city and seen how all labor is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not filled? Don't I know myself that no want is ever satisfied? Wishes are granted, goals attained. But wants? Forget them. They live as long as the person they inhabit."

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

"All is vanity, you know, ALL in the long run is but vanity and vexation of spirit."

"I'm not even sure we really had that much need for God as much as we did seem to have a need to believe in Him."

"The last thing any sensible human being should want is immortality. As it is, life lasts too long for most of us."

"Everyone needs a warm personal enemy or two to keep him free of rust in the movable parts of the mind."

"Men are not against you, they are merely for themselves."

"A book is never finished; it's abandoned."

"What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins."

"Sometimes I think it sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running."

"That man was so much larger than life that there's no scale by which to measure him. Most of Wilson's dialogue, if put down on paper, seems either vulgar or obscene."

"He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled."

"The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from."

"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

"You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini."

"When I'm caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried."

"A man in the house is worth two in the street."

"When women go wrong, men go right after them."

"It's not the men in your life that count, it's the life in your men."

"When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better."

"I only like two kinds of men, domestic and foreign."

"Oh, Beulah, Peel me a grape."

"Why don't you come up sometime and see me? … Come on up, I'll tell your fortune."

"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie."

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

"I've always had a weakness for foreign affairs."

"I've been in more laps than a napkin."

"She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong."