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date: 22 June 2025

Joseph Heller 1923–99
American novelist 

  1. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind…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.
    Catch-22 (1961) ch. 5
  2. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.
    Catch-22 (1961) ch. 9; see Shakespeare
  3. A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural.
    Catch-22 (1961)
  4. If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
    Good as Gold (1979)
  5. Kissinger brought peace to Vietnam the same way Napoleon brought peace to Europe: by losing.
    Good as Gold (1979)
  6. When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, ‘Who has?’
    in Times 9 June 1993