Joseph Heller Quotes

When there's a war, people get married.

I have been very fortunate as to escape through another day's very severe fighting and escaped unhurt.

Nations like individuals, when driven to choose between desperate courses, might at times be compelled to take the chance of destruction, often destroying themselves or suffering irreparable harm.

Light at the end of the tunnel? We don’t even have a tunnel. These generals don’t even know where the tunnel is.

When folks are in desperate times - say, like being stuck in the middle of a long-running interplanetary war - they grasp onto anything that might keep them afloat.

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.

It's obvious that things aren't going well over there. This is a war based on lies.

You see, when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide.

Where does a man go when there are no more corners to turn, when he's running out of hope, out of luck, out of time?

The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return.

People engaged in a war do not lose temper over matters which affect the fortunes of war.

No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint.

If we had not driven them into hell... hell would have swallowed us.

She doesn't know I cry for the changing times. That just as I reread favourite books, some small part of me hoping for a different ending, I find myself hoping against hope that the war will never come. That this time, somehow, it will leave us be.

The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief.

You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes. But don't stop with the way things are; dream of things as they ought to be. Dream of peace. Peace is rational and reasonable. War is irrational in this age and unwinnable.

A world is in flames, and you are cracking silly jokes.

When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.

The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief: either to perish, or to catch up with the advanced countries and outdistance them, too, in economic matters.

Nationalism stems from catastrophes, whether they are caused by earthquakes or lost wars.

In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful "break" was apt to lurk just around the corner.

These two enormous forces - truth and meaning - are at war in today's world... And something sooner or later has to give.

Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

War is the province of chance. In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.