Joseph Heller Quotes

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Can't you see that it's just raining? There ain't no need to go outside.

The rain, it raineth every day.

Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.

...life is in Fate's hands now. You made your choice to stay... it's too late to change that, so stop agonizing over it.... You're making my scales itch. Saphira, from "Eragon

For when a people is not willing or able to fight for its existence- Providence in its eternal justice has decreed that people's end.

People say things like "it wasn't supposed to go this way" and "this isn't what I wanted." They're just making noise. There's no such thing as "supposed to," and what you want doesn't matter. All that matters is what happened.

But it was equally clear to her that this was her fate, that she had called its name and it had come to her, and she could do nothing now but own it.

Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works.

Fate rules. You follow the steps and you plan and you work. Then fate slips in laughing and makes fools of us. Sometimes we can trick it or out guess it but most often its already written. For some its written in blood. That doesn't mean we stop, but it does mean we can't comfort ourselves with blame. It's easier to take the blame than to admit there was nothing you could do to stop whatever happened.

What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide.

Anything that happens, happens.

Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.

Wish that everything should come about just as it does.

There's no real alternative to what there is.

It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.

Then he read the words of the scroll slowly, first in Japanese and then carefully translated into English: 'There is really nothing you must be. And there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have. And there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However. It helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet. . . .' 'Whatever, there are consequences. Nobody is exempt,' said the master.

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

It doesn't have to be like that but mostly it is.

I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate

man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer

If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.

Fight if you wish. Deny what is before you if it comforts you. But nothing you do can change your fate.