Joseph Heller Quotes

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like […]

And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways… 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 […]

Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.

How did I get here? Somebody pushed me. Somebody must have set me off in this direction and clusters of other hands must have touched themselves to the controls at various times, for I would not have picked this way for the world.

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

When I read something saying I’ve not done anything as good as “Catch 22” I’m tempted to reply, “Who has?”

“What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought that you didn’t believe in God?” – “I don’t,” she sobbed, bursting 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.”

The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them.