He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.

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.

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

It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.

In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.

That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.