Frases de Joseph Heller

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“Imagínese lo que es un hombre de su edad arriesgando la poca vida que le queda por algo tan absurdo como una patria.
-Nately volvió a alzarse en son de guerra.
-¡No tiene nada de absurdo arriesgar la vida por la patria!- declaró.
-¿Ah, no? -preguntó el viejo-. ¿Qué es un país, al fin y al cabo? Un trozo de tierra rodeado por todas partes de fronteras, por lo general antinaturales. Los ingleses mueren por Inglaterra, los americanos por América, los alemanes por Alemania, los rusos por Rusia. Hay unos cincuenta o sesenta países luchando en esta guerra. No es posible que merezca la pena morir por todos ellos.
-Cualquier cosa por la que valga la pena vivir también vale la pena morir por ella -dijo Nately.
-Y cualquier cosa por la que valga la pena morir -replicó el viejo blasfemo- vale la pena vivir por ella. Es usted tan puro y tan inocente que casi me da lástima. ¿Cuántos años tiene? ¿Veinticinco? ¿Veintiséis?
-Diecinueve -respondió Nately-. Cumpliré veinte en enero.
-Si sigue usted vivo.”

“Yossarian estaba comprometiendo sus tradicionales derechos de libertad e independencia con la osadía de ejercerlos.”

“Vanity. What's wrong with vanity? It doesn't satisfy.”

“How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements?”

“There was no way of knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of knowing anything.”

“When one is infatuated, faults are endearing that in others would be heinous.”

“If character is destiny, the good are damned.”

“It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”

“All is vanity, you know, ALL in the long run is but vanity and vexation of spirit.”

“Yossarian — the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist.”

“If the chance ever comes to you to fall in love, grab it, every time. You might always live to regret it, but you won't find anything to beat it, and you won't know if it will come to you once more.”

“He who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.”

“I said it again as a German might. "Rabinovitz. Ich bin Lew Rabinowitz, LR, von Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. Du Kennst?" And then I spoke Yiddish. "Und ich bin ein Yid. Farshtest?" And then in English. "I am a Jew. Understand?" And then in my fractured German. "Ich bin Jude. Verstehst?" Now they didn't know where to look, but they did not want to look at me. I've got blue eyes that can turn into slits of ice, Claire still tells me, and a pale, European skin that can turn red fast when I laugh hard or get mad, and I wasn't sure they believed me.”

“He [God] owes me an apology too- at the very least. I'm not saying I shouldn't have been punished for those sins I committed. I'm saying that the punishments he chose were inhuman. I wonder what favor I'd want. I think I may be afraid to ask for it. I'm afraid He won't grant it. I'm more afraid that He will. Wouldn't it be tragic to find out that He really has been here all this time?”

“Women don't suffer from penis envy. Men do.”

“Didn't I once observe that there is nothing new under the sun?”

“The end result of experiencing terror and injury is not an increase in compassion, but a tendency toward callousness.”

“There is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete and everybody is capable of everything”

“He could never decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he had found it impossible to do both simultaneously.”

“But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share.”

“Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.”

“The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.”

“If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?”

“God is a murderer, imagine that. I told you I had the best story in the Bible, didn't I? I have always known that He was. Sooner or later He murders us all, doesn't He, and we go back to the dust from which we came. So I'm no longer scared to defy him. All He can do is kill me.”

“God does have this self-serving habit of putting all blame for His own mistakes on other people, doesn't He? He picks someone arbitrarily, unbidden, right out of the blue so to speak, and levies upon them tasks of monumental difficulty for which we don't always measure up in every particular, then charges US for HIS error in selecting imperfectly. He tends to forget that we are no more infallible than He is.”

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

“I imagine that God Himself frequently wants to feel like a king. Why else would He create the world?”

“"Let someone else get killed!" "Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" "Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"”

“The yellow moon turned orange and was soon red as the setting sun.”

“Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.”

“Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!”