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0eb91ee
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a nagging bitch of a doubt, burrowing painlessly inside a conscience that felt perfectly clear
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Joseph Heller |
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c5c7c50
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The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up directly in front of Yossarian and demanded, "How many fingers do you see?" "Two," said Yossarian. "How many fingers do you see now?" asked the doctor, holding up two. "Two," said Yossarian. "And how many now?" asked the doctor, holding up none. "Two," said Yossarian. The doctor's face wreathed with a smile. "By Jove, he's right," he declared jub..
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Joseph Heller |
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ae1af0a
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Milo carefully said nothing when Major de Coverley stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table. Already at the tab..
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Joseph Heller |
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b5e2939
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Well, Metcalf, suppose you try keeping that stupid mouth of yours shut,and maybe that's the way you learn how. Now where were we? Read me back the last line." "'Read me back the last line,'" read back the corporal who could take shorthand. "Not my last line, stupid!" the colonel shouted. "Somebody else's." "'Read me back the last line,'" read back the corporal. "That's my last line again!" shrieked the colonel, turning purple with anger. "O..
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Joseph Heller |
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55f2e5f
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I'm cold,' Snowden whimpered. 'I'm cold.' 'There, there,' Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. 'There, there.' 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..
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Joseph Heller |
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969fd2b
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I only raped her once," he explained. Yossarian was aghast. "But you killed her, Aarfy! You killed her!" "Oh, I had to do that after I raped her," Aarfy replied in his most condescending manner."
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Joseph Heller |
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ed1dbb7
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Know what I mean? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Yossarian knew what he meant. "That's not what I meant," Doc Daneeka said as Yossarian began scratching his back."
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Joseph Heller |
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b5aa25d
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Chaplain," he continued, looking up, "we accuse you also of the commission of crimes and infractions we don't even know about yet. Guilty or innocent?" "I don't know, sir. How can I say if you don't tell me what they are?" "How can we tell you if we don't know?" "Guilty," decided the colonel. "Sure he's guilty," agreed the major. "If they're his crimes and infractions, he must have committed them."
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Joseph Heller |
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04255f7
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First impressions die slowly, bad impressions take even longer
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Joseph Heller |
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5b2bb77
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I will give you intelligence," submitted the Creator, "enough knowledge to destroy everything on earth, but you will have to use it." "Done!" said our ancestor and that was our Genesis."
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Joseph Heller |
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2686e4f
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Why,' swore Yossarian at him approvingly, 'you evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded, disaffiliated son of a -----, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?' 'I didn't,' Orr said, 'walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab apples in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples, I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks.
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Joseph Heller |
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3b6ce6c
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Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale, sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence because he brought to mind all the pale, sad, sickly children in Italy that same night who needed haircuts and needed shoes and socks.
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Joseph Heller |
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a331e3b
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Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.
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Joseph Heller |
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730b280
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Sure, there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
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Joseph Heller |
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adb3f50
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Moses has the Ten Commandments, it's true, but I've got much better lines - King David
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Joseph Heller |
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9444109
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As soon as there was profit, there were people who wanted to make it, more than they wanted to make anything else.
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Joseph Heller |
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34a4206
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he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves. What a welcome sight a leper must have been!
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Joseph Heller |
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957fba8
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Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person in the universe getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.
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Joseph Heller |
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ea8a3e6
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Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.
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Joseph Heller |
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a38afb5
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He mashed hundreds of cakes of GI soap into the sweet potatoes just to show that people have the taste of Philistines and don't know the difference between good and bad.
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Joseph Heller |
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aefaf08
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he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall?
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Joseph Heller |
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cb9ad32
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The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.
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Joseph Heller |
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ed0bf39
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Superman?' Clevinger cried. 'Superman?' 'Supraman,' Yossarian corrected.
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Joseph Heller |
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02a0c2a
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What does the fish remind you of?" "Other fish." "And what do the other fish remind you of?" "Other fish." Major Sanderson sat back disappointedly. "Do you like fish?" "Not especially."
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Joseph Heller |
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4678a45
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The only one who lived with the chaplain in his clearing in the woods was Corporal Whitcomb, his assistant. Corporal Whitcomb, an atheist, was a disgruntled subordinate who felt he could do the chaplain's job much better than the chaplain was doing it and viewed himself, therefore, as an underprivileged victim of social inequity.
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Joseph Heller |
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f8cdef8
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How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast.
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catch-22
growing-old
ageing
growing-up
growing-older
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Joseph Heller |
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501564a
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Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily.
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Joseph Heller |
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b063b18
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Tu sei pazzo!
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Joseph Heller |
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8585895
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He had poor eyesight and chronic sinus trouble, which made war especially exciting for him, since he was in no danger of going overseas.
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Joseph Heller |
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677f134
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Sure there's a catch,' Doc Daneeka replied. 'Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.' 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 m..
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Joseph Heller |
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c73c56f
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There was no established procedure for evasive action. All you needed was fear, and Yossarian had plenty of that, more fear than Orr or Hungry Joe, more fear even than Dunbar, who had resigned himself submissively to the idea that he must die someday
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Joseph Heller |
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f070c00
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Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all. And if that wasn't funny, there were lots of things that weren't even funnier. There was nothing funny about living like a bum in a tent in Pianosa between fat mountains behind him and a placid blue sea in front that could gulp down a p..
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Joseph Heller |
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828276d
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The Texan wanted everybody in the ward to be happy but Yossarian and Dunbar. He was really very sick.
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Joseph Heller |
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5d7c000
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Sinking invalids blew kisses to him from windows. Aproned shopkeepers cheered ecstatically from the narrow doorways of their shops. Tubas crumped. Here and there a person fell and was trampled to death.
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Joseph Heller |
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ac79b9b
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It was just before dawn during the Great Big Siege of Bologna, when tongueless dead men peopled the night hours like living ghosts and Hungry Joe was half out of his mind with anxiety because he had finished his missions
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Joseph Heller |
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616c9c1
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Nincs mod arra, hogy tenyleg mindent tudjunk, ezt is tudta, sot azt is, hogy meg azt se tudhatjuk, valoban nincs-e mod arra, hogy tenyleg mindent tudjunk.
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Joseph Heller |
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286072f
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That was where he wanted to be if he had to be there at all, instead of hung out there in front like some goddam cantilevered goldfish in some goddam cantilevered goldfish bowl while the goddam foul black tiers of flak were bursting and booming and billowing all around and above and below him in a climbing, cracking, staggered, banging, phantasmagorical, cosmological wickedness that jarred and tossed and shivered, clattered and pierced, and..
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Joseph Heller |
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2b1d346
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you have to be insane before they will let you fly no more missions, but the fact that you want to fly no more missions is proof that you are not insane.
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Joseph Heller |
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083845f
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Well, maybe it's true," Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. "Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions to make it seem long. But in that event, who wants one?" "I do" Dunbar told him. "why?" Clevinger asked. "What else is there?"
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Joseph Heller |
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eb537a6
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was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.
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Joseph Heller |
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5e568d1
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Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilara..
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Joseph Heller |
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eb06a32
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He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive. The
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Joseph Heller |
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b3a67a5
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Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.
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Joseph Heller |
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dc95c65
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It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his. There
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Joseph Heller |