I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.

After he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. One day he had a better idea. To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. "They asked for volunteers. It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. I'll write you the instant I get back." And he had not written anyone since.

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

"Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for." "Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for." "And anything worth dying for," answered the sacrilegious old man, "is certainly worth living for."

What do you do when it rains?" The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.

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.

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