Catch 22 versus Dr Zhivago
2 different world views
“He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
tags: misattributed-kurt-cobain
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
And what difference does that make?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.”
― joseph heller, Catch-22
“He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“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.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Insanity is contagious.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Why are they going to disappear him?'
I don't know.'
It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."
"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."
"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."
"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"
"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am."
"Don't try to deny it."
"I'm not denying it, sir," said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. "I agree with all you've said.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Be glad you're even alive.'
Be furious you're going to die.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“From now on I'm thinking only of me."
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."
"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. 'This long.' He snapped his fingers. 'A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.'
'Old?' asked Clevinger with surprise. 'What are you talking about?'
'Old.'
'I'm not old.'
'You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?' Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.
'Well, maybe it is true,' Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. '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?'
'I do,' Dunbar told him.
'Why?' Clevinger asked.
'What else is there?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
versus historical imperative
In bourgeois terms it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes - and which of them won was a matter of indifference.
Yevgraf Zhivago
on World War I
Yevgraf Zhivago
They were shouting for victory all over Europe--praying for victory to the same God. My task--the Party's task--was to organize defeat. From defeat would spring the Revolution...and the Revolution would be victory for us
Yevgraf Zhivago
The party looked to the conscript peasants. Most of them were in their first good pair of boots. When the boots wore out, they'd be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three battalions with me out of the front lines; the best day's work I ever did.
Yevgraf Zhivago
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
I asked him hadn't he one of his own, and so he talked about the Revolution.Zhivago:
You lay life on a table and cut out all the tumors of injustice. Marvelous.Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
I told him if he felt like that he should join the party.Zhivago:
Ah, but cutting out the tumors of injustice, that's a deep operation. Someone must keep life alive while you do it, by living. Isn't that right?Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
I thought then it was wrong. He told me what he thought about the party, and I trembled for him. He approved of us, but for reasons which were subtle like his verse, approval like such as his could vanish overnight. I told him so.Zhivago:
Of course I can't approve this evening of something you'll do tomorrow.Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
He was walking about with a noose about his neck and didn't know. So I told him what I had heard about his poems.Zhivago:
Not liked, not liked by whom. Why not liked?Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
So I told him that.Zhivago:
Do you think it's personal petty bourgeois and self-indulgence?Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:
I lied, but he believed me. And it struck me through to think that my opinion mattered.Happy men don't volunteer. They wait their turn, and thank god if their age or work delays it.
Yevgraf Zhivago
Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that nine hundred mile-long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.
Yevgraf Zhivago
I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man. And the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city.
Yevgraf Zhivago
That was the first time I ever saw my brother. But I knew him. And I knew I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of love between us, but I doubt it; we were only half-tied anyway, and brothers will betray a brother. Indeed, as a policeman I would say get hold of a man's brother and you're half-way home. Nor was it admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him; but I didn't think he was a better man. Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol.
Yevgraf Zhivago
No doubt they'll sing in tune after the revolution...
Viktor Komarovsky
http://www.finestquotes.com/movie_quotes/movie/Doctor+Zhivago/page/0.htm
Marx das Kapital
In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism, an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism.[98]