The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish.

Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?

...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.

I couldn't see much point in tying myself down to a middle-aged woman with four children, even though the woman was my wife and the children were my own.

Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)

But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.

You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate." "Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.