
Catch-22
First published 1961 · 463 pages · about 8 hours to read
Won: 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
On these lists: #1 Books like Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five · #11 Books like Severance (TV series)
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About this book
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It has its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality -- a masterpiece of our time. - Back cover.
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Quotes
"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?"
p. 16
More quotes
"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?"
p. 446 “Of course you're dying. We're all dying. Where the devil else do you think you're heading?”
p. 182 “Actually, the pain in his liver had gone away, but Yossarian didn't say anything and the doctors never suspected.”
p. 7
Quotes from Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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