For the things in life which make me glad I'm not dead yet.
QOTD
Despair
In the midst of my cynicism I would occasionally daydream of the future. My hopes? To excel in all that I had been doing in the past: to write widely acclaimed articles and books; to raise my children so they might avoid the mistakes I had made; to meet some technicolour woman with whom I would become soul mate for life. Unfortunately, the thought that these dreams might all be fulfilled plunged me into despair.
– The Dice Man (Luke Rhinehart)
Unhealthy
Now the desire to kill oneself and to assassinate, poison, obliterate or rape others is generally considered in the psychiatric profession as ‘unhealthy’. Bad. Evil. More accurately, sin. When you have the desire to kill yourself, you are supposed to see it and ‘accept it’, but not, for Christ’s sake, to kill yourself. If you desire to have carnal knowledge of a helpless teeny-bopper, you are supposed to accept your lust, and not lay a finger on even her big toe. If you hate your father, fine – but don’t slug the bastard with a bat. Understand yourself, accept yourself, but do not be yourself.
– The Dice Man (Luke Rhinehart)
Go to Russia
He was rocking the boat, Milo said, and Yossarian nodded once more. He was not a member of the team, Milo said. Yossarian nodded and listened to Milo tell him that the decent thing to do if he did not like the way Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were running things was to to go Russia, instead of stirring up trouble. Yossarian refrained from pointing out that Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and Milo could all go to Russia if they did not like the way he was stirring up trouble.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Be Patient
It was not their fault that they were young and cheerful, he reminded himself as he carried the swinging beam of his flashlight back through the darkness. He wished that he could be young and cheerful, too. And it wasn’t their fault that they were courageous, confident and carefree. He would just have to be patient with them until one or two were killed and the rest wounded, and then they would all turn out okay.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Another Generation
He could not make them understand that he belonged to another generation, another era, another world, that having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort, and that they bored him, too. He could not make them shut up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
No Complaints
They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits. They laughed at everything. The called him ‘Yo-Yo’ jocularly and came in tipsy late at night and woke him up with their clumsy, bumping, giggling efforts to be quiet, then bombarded him with asinine shouts of hilarious good-fellowship when he sat up cursing to complain. He wanted to massacre them each time they did. They reminded him of Donald Duck’s nephews. They were afraid of Yossarian and persecuted him incessantly with nagging generosity and with their exasperating insistence on doing small favours for him. They were reckless, puerile, congenial, naive, presumptuous, deferential and rambunctious. They were dumb; they had no complaints.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Change
Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
A Normal, Lonely Adult Life
Why couldn’t anybody understand that he was not really a freak but a normal, lonely adult trying to lead a normal, lonely adult life?
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Very Friendly
Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Never Without Misery
He was pinched perspiringly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope.
– Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)