Quotes from God Knows

Joseph Heller ·  368 pages

Rating: (3K votes)


“Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“But how can one be warm alone?”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“That's another thing that pisses me off about that Michelangelo statue of me in Florence. He's got me standing there uncircumcised! Who the fuck did he think I was?”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“It takes very little to make us [women] happy, and more than is contained in heaven and earth to keep us that way”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“Some Promised Land. The honey was there, but the milk we brought in with our goats. To people in California, God gives a magnificent coastline, a movie industry, and Beverly Hills. To us He gives sand. To Cannes He gives a plush film festival. We get the PLO. Our winters are rainy, our summers hot. To people who didn't know how to wind a wristwatch He gives underground oceans of oil. To us He gives hernia, piles, and anti-Semitism.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows



“You’ve got to have a God. Without God, you might turn to something really crazy, like witchcraft, or religion.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“First impressions die slowly, bad impressions take even longer”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


“Moses has the Ten Commandments, it's true, but I've got much better lines - King David”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows


About the author

Joseph Heller
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
Born date May 1, 1923
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“In America, they make such things of wire and of sponge-rubber, such as you use in the sets of tanks. You never know there, whether there is any truth in the matter, unless you are a bad boy as I am.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Across the River and into the Trees


“who blamed Lee. Longstreet knew that somewhere”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from The Last Full Measure


“I know, Little Man, you are quick with the diagnosis of craziness when you meet a truth you don’t like. And you feel yourself as the ‘homo normalis’. You have locked up crazy people, and the normal people manage this world. Who then is to blame for all the misery? Not you, of course, you only do your duty, and who are you to have an opinion of your own? I know, you don’t have to repeat it. It isn’t you that matters, Little Man. But when I think of your newborn children, of how you torture them in order to make them into ‘normal’ human beings after your image.”
― Wilhelm Reich, quote from Listen, Little Man!


“You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day.”
― Seneca, quote from On the Shortness of Life


“A different word usually came to my mind when I thought of Yeva, though it did sound a lot like “witch.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction


Interesting books

The Story of Awkward
(2.8K)
The Story of Awkward
by R.K. Ryals
In The Blood
(10.3K)
In The Blood
by Lisa Unger
Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results
(21.9K)
Blue Labyrinth
(13.9K)
Blue Labyrinth
by Douglas Preston
The Syrian Virgin
(401)
The Syrian Virgin
by Zack Love
Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
(514)
Poems of Edgar Allan...
by Edgar Allan Poe

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.