Catch-22 Quotes

When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?' (Joseph Heller)
There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy. View quote
Harlan Coben
In Catch-22, the figure of the black market and the ground of war merge into a monster presided over by the syndicate. When war and market merge, all money transactions begin to drip blood. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
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. That's some catch, that catch-22. View quote
Joseph Heller
You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself. View quote
Jodi Picoult
It was a catch-22: If you didn't put the trauma behind you, you couldn't move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened. View quote
Jodi Picoult
You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing. View quote
Mikhail Baryshnikov
There is what might be called a Catch-22 of hazardous occupations: The more hazardous the job, the more men; the more men, the less we care about making the job safer. The Catch-22 of hazardous occupations creates a 'glass cellar' which few women wish to enter. Women are alienated not just out of the fear of being hurt on the job, but by an atmosphere that can make a hazardous job more hazardous than it needs to be. View quote
Warren Farrell
Industrialization created the Father's Catch-22: a dad loving his children by being away from the love of his children. View quote
Warren Farrell
We have to nurture our young women and understand the beauty and the strength of being a woman. It's kind of a catch-22: Strength in women isn't appreciated, and vulnerability in women isn't appreciated. It's like, 'What the hell do you do?' What you do is you don't allow anyone to dictate who you are. View quote
Jada Pinkett Smith
'Catch-22' was a huge failure, and it rubbed off on everybody connected to it. I had a bunch of lean years where I had to do things, a lot of which I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about. (Alan Arkin)
I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist. View quote
Donny Osmond
In a typical mental health catch-22, the alienating nature of depression tends to keep its sufferers from finding their way to the very support groups that might help them. View quote
Elizabeth Wurtzel
I feel like part of your job as an actor is you're going to get noticed, and the more successful you get, the more noticed you are. It's kind of like a Catch-22. View quote
Lynn Collins
This left me alone to solve the coffee problem - a sort of catch-22, as in order to think straight I need caffeine, and in order to make that happen I need to think straight. View quote
David Sedaris
Creationism and Darwinism are not necessarily contradictory; they each have an answer to the age-old catch-22 question "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”. View quote
Newton Lee
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. View quote
Joseph Heller
It's always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you're the same, and they hate you if you're different. View quote
Eddie Van Halen
Nothing threatens a father's involvement in the family more than his obligation to be the family's "financial womb,” creating "The Father's ‘Catch-22'”: loving the family by being away from the family. It is the irony of traditional fatherhood: being a father by not being a father. View quote
Warren Farrell
The corporate Catch-22: Don't be flexible, lose good women; be flexible, lose good women... A company listening to women's desires for [flexibility and therefore] fewer promotions, giving fewer promotions to women, and then being sued for giving fewer promotions to women. Yiddish has a word for this: chutzpah. View quote
Warren Farrell
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)