Important Quotations Explained
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 was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was
ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would
have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions
and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he would have 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. Yossarian was moved very deeply
by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-
22 and
let out a respectful whistle. “That's some catch, that Catch-
22,”
he observed. “It's the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.
2. These
three men who hated [Clevinger] spoke his language and wore his
uniform, but he saw their loveless faces set immutably into cramped,
mean lines of hostility and understood instantly that nowhere in
the world, not in all the fascist tanks or planes or submarines,
not in the bunker behind the machine guns or mortars or behind the
blowing flame throwers, not even among all the expert gunners of
the crack Hermann Goering Antiaircraft Division or among the grisly
connivers in all the beer halls in Munich and everywhere else, were
there men who hated him more.
3. One
of the things [Yossarian] wanted to start screaming about was the
surgeon's knife that was almost certain to be waiting for him and
everyone else who lived long enough to die. He wondered often how
he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch,
sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of
memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable
end.
4. “Haven't
you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys
and God? I'd like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether
if we can.”
The chaplain was apologetic.
“I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid all the prayers I know
are rather
somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God.”
“Then
let's get some new ones.”
5. Yossarian
was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples
clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim
secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy
to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's
secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and
he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. That
was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.
