I can't start writing until I have a closing line.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.

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?

All of our religions but the Judaic and the Greek think more of us dead than alive.

To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.

Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.