A Catch-22 Quote Bonanza

[Catch22Dem]

By far my favorite book. Why? Just check these babies out!

Colonel Cargill was so bad a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes.

---

"Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other country in the world can make that statement. Think about it." He waited a moment to permit them to think about it.

---

"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No, then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there is a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

---

"What would they do to me," he asked in confidential tones, "if I refuse to fly them?"

"We'd probably shoot you," ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied.

"We?" Yossarian cried in surprise. "What do you mean we? Since when are you on their side?"

"If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on?" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen retorted.

---

Damn, there's so many!!!

[Richardo]

1. I'm with you all the way my brother...

Catch-22 is my favorite book of all time... :thumbsup:

I'm going into the archives for one of the most timely exchanges...BRB

[Catch22Dem]

3. Cool, make sure ya show me what it is!

[Richardo]

5. Check out this exchange....

"These are very critical times," Colonel Cathcart asserted petulantly from a far corner of the office...

"Hasn't he got any patriotism?"

"Won't you fight for your country?" Colonel Korn demanded, emulating Colonel Cathcart's harsh, self-righteous tone. "Won't you give up your life for Colonel Cathcart and me?"

Yossarian tensed with alert astonishment when he heard Colonel Korn's concluding words. "What's that?" he exclaimed. "What have you and Colonel Cathcart got to do with my country? You're not the same."

"How can you separate us?" Colonel Korn inquired with ironical tranquillity.

"That's right," Colonel Cathcart cried emphatically. "You're either for us or against us. There's no two ways about it.

"I'm afraid he's got you," added Colonel Korn. You're either for us or against your country. It's as simple as that."

"Oh, no Colonel. I don't buy that."

Colonel Korn was unruffled. "Neither do I, frankly, but everyone else will. So there you are."

------------------

[Catch22Dem]

6. Wow!

I had forgotten that little exchange. Scary.

By the way, Will Rogers was a not-too-distant cousin of mine. I mean that he's pretty darn easy to trace in the ol' family tree.

[Richardo]

8. I'm impressed...good stock

My most concrete contribution to DU (so far) was requesting the Will Rogers avatar... :thumbsup:

[NWHarkness]

2. What's the line about God?

Something like "I don't believe in God, but the God I don't believe in is a just God."

[Catch22Dem]

4. Here ya go

"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else, He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, 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 their power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"

"Pain?" Lieutenant Schiesskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. "Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us about bodily dangers."

"And who created the dangers?" Yossarian demanded, He laughed caustically. "Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead? Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He?"

"People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads."

"They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupified with morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power he had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious. He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!"

"You'd better not talk that way about Him, honey," she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. "He might punish you."

"Isn't He punishing me enough?" Yossarian snorted resentfully. "You know, we mustn't let him get away with it. Oh no, we certainly musn't let Him get away scot-free for all the sorrow He's caused us. Someday I'm going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgement Day. Yes, that's the day I'll be close enough to reach out and grab that little yokel by His neck and -"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

"What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"I don't," she sobbed, burting violently into tears. "But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be."

Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. "Let's have a little more religious freedom between us," he proposed obligingly. "You don't believe in a God you want to, and I won't believe in a God I want to. Is that a deal?"

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. I See everything twice!

(Yossarian, in the Hospital, looking on in admiration at another soldier who just exclaimed the same thing)

And from the movie.....
What if everyone felt that way?
Then i'd be a damned fool to feel any different, wouldnt i?

[Richardo]

9. He was determined to live forever or die in the attempt...

:-)

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. LMAO!!! Too funny. Catch 22 is certainly a classic.

n/t

[PragMantisT]

10. Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.

But Yossarian knew he was right, because, as he explained to Clevinger, to the best of his knowledge he had never been wrong.

Greatest book ever.

[geniph]

12. "Take that man outside and shoot him!"

"General, I don't think you can do that."