There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?

— Joseph Heller

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 Daniela agreed.

— Joseph Heller

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22 which specified the concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.

— Joseph Heller

There was shish kebab for lunch, huge, savory hunks of spitted meat sizzling like the devil over charcoal after marinating seventy-two hours in a secret mixture Milo had stolen from a crooked trader in the Levant, served with Iranian rice and asparagus tips Parmesan, followed by cherries' jubilee for dessert and then steaming cups of fresh coffee with Benedictine and brandy.

— Joseph Heller

There were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater job of it. They couldn’t dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. Furthermore, they couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was there she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow-up in midair like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian’s tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summer the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane.“I’m cold,” Snowden had whimpered. “I’m cold.”“There, there,” Yossarian had tried to comfort him. “There, there.” They didn’t take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clinger had done. They didn’t explode into blood and clotted matter. Furthermore, they didn’t drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. Furthermore, they didn’t get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children, or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain’t. There were no famines or floods. Children didn’t suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn’t stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! On the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry.

— Joseph Heller

The spirit gone, man is garbage.

— Joseph Heller

They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

— Joseph Heller

They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable. Furthermore, they were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one. Furthermore, they had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose pictures were already standing on the rough cement mantelpiece of Orr's fireplace. Furthermore, they had ridden in speedboats and played tennis. Furthermore, they had been horseback riding. One had once been to bed with an older woman. They knew the same people in different parts of the country and had gone to school with each other's cousins.

— Joseph Heller

What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God."" 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.

— Joseph Heller

Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"" Every one of them," Yossarian told him." Every one of whom?"" Every one of whom do you think?"" I haven't any idea."" Then how do you know they aren't?"" Because..." Clinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration. Clinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all.

— Joseph Heller