Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 is undoubtedly one of the most important literary works of the 20th century. Though it was first published 60 years ago, Heller's scathing satire about the futility and absurdity of war continues to haunt and move listeners today. Set during World War II, the novel mostly concerns the actions of Captain John Yossarian and his comrades in the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron. Heller explores many hefty themes, which, along with Heller's sharp, observant, and lyrical prose, make the book fertile ground for thought-provoking discussions and memorable quotes.

Below you'll find 30+ of the best quotes reflecting three of the book's central themes: power, faith, and death. Though there are certainly more worthy quotes in this incomparable listen, this collection cuts to the heart of the novel and will leave you thinking.


 

The Best Catch-22 Quotes About Power

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

2. "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." 

3. "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." 

4. "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." 

5. "You know, that might be the answer—to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail."

6. "It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."

7. "The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them."

8. "Everyone teaches us to aspire to higher things. A general is higher than a colonel, and a colonel is higher than a lieutenant colonel. So we're both aspiring."

9. "When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy."


 

The Best Catch-22 Quotes About Faith

10. "As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction."

11. "There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to."

12. "All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars."

13. "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.'"

14. "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."

15. "He was never without misery, and never without hope."

16. "So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall?"

17. "Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up."

18. "What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken?"

19. "I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings."


 

The Best Catch-22 Quotes About Death

20. "He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt."

21. "You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. 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."

22. "History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance."

23. "You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear."

24. "They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady."

25. "Of course you’re dying. We’re all dying. Where the devil else do you think you’re heading?"

26. "Be glad you're even alive. Be furious you're going to die."

27. "What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural…There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for."

28. "Death was irreversible, he suspected, and he began to think he was going to lose."

29. "Man was matter... 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. The spirit gone, man is garbage."

30. "Well, he died. You don't get any older than that."