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161 " Man was matter. Drop him out of 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. "
― Joseph Heller , Catch-22
162 " Now, where were we? Read me back the last line.” “ ‘Read me back the last line,’ ” read back the corporal who could take shorthand. "
163 " It isn't necessary to call me Father, the chaplain explained. I'm an Anabaptist. "
164 " The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red, pear-shaped, plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incarnadine symbol of his own ineptitude. "
165 " That's not what justice is," the colonel jeered, and began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. "That's what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it? "
166 " There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain’s revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects filled him with equal fear and depression. It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu. It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of and illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery. "
167 " I've always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others. "
168 " There was no way of really knowing anything, he knew, not even that there was no way of really knowing anything. "
169 " I’d be the last colonel in the world to order you to go to that U.S.O. show and have a good time, but I want every one of you who isn’t sick enough to be in a hospital to go to that U.S.O. show right now and have a good time, and that’s an order! "
170 " Like all the other officers at Group Headquarters except Major Danby, Colonel Cathcart was infused with the democratic spirit: he believed that all men were created equal, and he therefore spurned all men outside Group Headquarters with equal fervor. "
171 " Even when he cheated he couldn’t win, because the people he cheated against were always better at cheating too. "
172 " I think I’d like to live like a vegetable and make no important decisions.” “What kind of vegetable, Danby?” “A cucumber or a carrot.” “What kind of cucumber? A good one or a bad one?” “Oh, a good one, of course.” “They’d cut you off in your prime and slice you up for a salad.” Major Danby’s face fell. “A poor one, then.” “They’d let you rot and use you for fertilizer to help the good ones grow.” “I guess I don’t want to live like a vegetable, then,” said Major Danby with a smile of sad resignation. "
173 " The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on "
174 " Szégyenkezve és reménykedve keresett új kapcsolatokat, és mindig kiábrándult. Mert olyan elkeseredetten keresett barátokat, sohasem talált egyet se. "
175 " Everyone was elated with this turn of events, most of all Colonel Cathcart, who was convinced he had won a feather in his cap. He greeted Milo jovially each time they met and, in an excess of contrite generosity, impulsively recommended Major Major for promotion. The recommendation was rejected at once at Twenty- seventh Air Force Headquaters by ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, who scribbled a brusque, unsigned reminder that the Army had only one Major Major Major Major and did not intend to lose him by promotion just to please Colonel Cathcart. "
176 " You pompous, rotund, neighborly, vacuous, complacent... - Yossarian "
177 " Colonel Cathcart was impervious to absolutes. He could measure his own progress only in relationship to others, and his idea of excellence was to do something at least as well as all the men his own age who were doing the same thing even better. "
178 " Yossarian attended the education sessions because he wanted to find out why so many people were working so hard to kill him. "
179 " Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. "
180 " You've got flies in your eyes. That's why you can't see them. "