Joseph Heller Quotes

As a combat veteran, I know the cost of war.

No one hates war like a soldier hates war.

It's one thing to say you're for the war; it's another thing to send your kid to war - your daughter or your son.

I was drafted when I was 17, and I spent two years, and I lost a friend in war.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can.

The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

Men go to war for fear, honor or interest.

War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war.

I think it is a mistake to focus - as we most often do - only on the sacrifice of life that war requires. War also requires that we sacrifice our normal unwillingness to kill.

When you go to war, it's important for everybody to know that they're going to come home in one way or other.

Overseas, America's fighting men and women have been waging war against those who would attack America and plunge the world into a period of darkness, and their success can easily be seen.

You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought, so far as the country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end.

A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries.

When there's a war, people get married.

I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.

Let it be remembered, too, that at a time of war, nearly every one is under great strain.

In the Marine Corps, you meet this really broad segment of the country; you're working with people from all kinds of backgrounds. And it exposes you to the American military, particularly the American military at war.

The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.

It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.

I think that you can honour the sacrifices of a common soldier without glorifying war.

War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.

I'm glad I never went to war.

War was my university. Everything has proceeded from there.

The accounting of the sacrifice is, more than anything else, the attitude toward war memorials in our time.

We have long honored those who gave their lives during the unfortunate reality of war.