14 Joseph Heller Quotes on War

Joseph Heller quotes on war

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

5. 'Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.'

6. Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy.

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

10. '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?'

12. The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with.

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

15. Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist.

19. This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.

20. 'Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.'

21. 'Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. 'This long.' He snapped his fingers. 'A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.' 'Old?' asked Clevinger with surprise. 'What are you talking about?' 'Old.' 'I'm not old.' 'You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?' Dunbar was almost angry when he finished. 'Well, maybe it is true,' Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. 'Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?' 'I do,' Dunbar told him. 'Why?' Clevinger asked. 'What else is there?'

25. '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.'

53. How ironic the difference between me and my young son Absalom, between his soliciting the soundest means of overtaking me and having my life, while I was cudgeling my brains for a way to spare his. 'Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom,' were my mawkish words to my commanders as their men trooped past me toward the positions they would take up in the field outside the wood of Ephraim for the battle in which he would die. 'Beware that none touch the young man Absalom,' I urged like a fool. No, not like a fool, but like a fond, doting father who will overlook and excuse everything in the child he loves best, and who breaks his heart. And in that singular disparity in our desires abides his lasting victory over me: I loved him and he did not love me.

59. 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.