Catch-22 quotes

Primarily humorous, screwed up quotes

More quotes from Catch-22 can be found on pages 228-9, 240-1, 254-5, 264-5, 266-7, 350-1 (also Doc Daneeka's death), 362-3, 392-3, 414-5, 422-3, and 428-9.

"I thought you didn't believe in God."

"I don't. 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 and Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife on God

--Catch-22, page 190

He believed all of the news he heard and had faith in none.

He was ... shrewdly sensitive to relationships and situations the did not exist.

He was someone in the know who was always striving pathetically to find out what was going on.

He ... brooded inconsolably over the terrible ineradicable impressions he knew he kept making on people of prominence who were scarcely aware that he was even alive.

--Description of Colonel Cathcart

--Catch-22, page 198

"Do you think it does you credit to have you chaplain hanging around here every night? He's in here every ****** time I come."

"You're right, sir, absoutely right. It does me no credit at all. And I am going to do something about it, this very minute."

"Aren't you the one who ordered him to come here?"

"No, sir, that was Colonel Korn. I intend to punish him severely, too."

"If he wasn't a chaplain I'd have him taken outside and shot."

"He's not a chaplain, sir."

"Isn't he? Then why the **** does he wear that cross on his collar if he's not a chaplain?"

"He doesn't wear a cross on his collar, sir. He wears a silver leaf. He's a lieutenant colonel."

"You've got a chaplain who's a lieutenant colonel?"

"Oh, no, sir. My chaplain is only a captain."

"Then why the **** does he wear a silver leaf on his collar if he's only a captain?"

"He doesn't wear a silver leaf on his collar, sir. He wears a cross."

"Go away from me now, you son of a *****, or I'll have you taken outside and shot!"

"Yes, sir."

--conversation between General Dreedle and Colonel Cathcart about having Cathcart's chaplain hanging around the Officer's Club

--Catch-22, pg 295

He made so many people uneasy. Everyone was always very friendly toward him, no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.

--Description of the Chaplain's experience in the officer's club

--Catch-22, pg 279

"Just why do you think that Colonel Ferredge finds your dream disgusting?"

"I suppose it's either some quality in the dream or some quality in Colonel Ferredge."

--Conversation between the psychiatrist and Yossarian about Yossarian's dream

--Catch-22, pg 304-5

"Just look how cold I am right now. You're sure you're not holding anything back?"

"You're dead, sir."

--part of an exchange between Doc Daneeka and his orderlies after he "dies" in a plane that he was recorded as being in so he could avoid flying and still collect his flight pay

--Catch-22, pg 352