Catch-22

His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily.

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

He had opposed his daughter’s marriage to Colonel Moodus because he disliked attending weddings.

McWatt was the craziest combat man of them all probably, because he was perfectly sane and still did not mind the war.

Yossarian had done his best to warn him the night before. ‘You haven’t got a chance, kid,’ he told him glumly. ‘They hate Jews.’ ‘But I’m not Jewish,’ answered Clevinger. ‘It will make no difference,’ Yossarian promised, and Yossarian was right. ‘They’re after everybody.’

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.

‘Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?’

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.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was not? What could you say to him?