Quotes from Something Happened

Joseph Heller ·  576 pages

Rating: (6.3K votes)


“Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“i know at last what i want to be when i grow up. when i grow up i want to be a little boy.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“Maybe I am senile already and people are too kind to tell me. People are not kind and would tell me. (Maybe people have told me, and I'm too senile to remember).”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“I get the willies when I see closed doors.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“I have a feeling that someone nearby is soon going to find out something about me that will mean the end, although I can't imagine what that something is.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened



“I frequently feel I'm being taken advantage of merely because I'm asked to do the work I'm paid to do.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“It's a real problem to decide whether it's more boring to do something boring than to pass along everything boring that comes in to somebody else and then have nothing to do at all.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“I suppose it is just about impossible for someone like me to rebel anymore and produce any kind of lasting effect. I have lost the power to upset things that I had as a child; I can no longer change my environment or even disturb it seriously.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“trying to evade the people who frighten us. We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, changing our partner and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“That's what Paradise is- never knowing the difference.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened



“Depreciating motels, junked automobiles, and quick-food joints grow like amber waves of grain.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“And between us now there is this continual underground struggle over something trivial and nebulous that won't abate and has lasted nearly as long as the two of us have known each other. "I love you.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“Niet nikoho, kým by som bol radšej než sám sebou - aj keď sa v skutočnosti nemám rád a dokonca som si ani nie istý, kto som.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


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

“I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him.”
― Martha Stout, quote from The Sociopath Next Door


“The gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime.” “What’s that, O’Brien?” replied I … “Why, Peter,” rejoined he, “it’s the stuff they feed fools on.” —P. Simple, Marryat,”
― Michael Shermer, quote from Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time


“Dresden’s not gone,” I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. “He’s here.” I touched Will’s bare chest, on the left side. “Here. Without him, without what he’s done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off.”
“No,” he agreed. “Probably not. Definitely not.”
“There are a lot of people he’s taught. Trained. Defended. And he’s been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files


“C'è qualcosa di più nel nome astratto (bellezza, libertà) rispetto alle qualità (bello, libero) attribuite a persone, cose o condizioni particolari. L'universale sostantivo allude a qualità che sorpassano ogni esperienza particolare ma persistono nella mente, non come una finzione della immaginazione e neppure come possibilità più logiche, bensì come il materiale di cui consiste il nostro mondo.”
― Herbert Marcuse, quote from One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society


“For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.”
― Aeschylus, quote from Prometheus Bound


Interesting books

Coraline
(374.1K)
Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
Far from the Madding Crowd
(104.5K)
Far from the Madding...
by Thomas Hardy
Pet Sematary
(308.7K)
Pet Sematary
by Stephen King
P.S. I Love You
(297.6K)
P.S. I Love You
by Cecelia Ahern
Interpreter of Maladies
(134.4K)
Interpreter of Malad...
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Little House on the Prairie
(216.6K)
Little House on the...
by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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.