Quote
"Yesterday, I helped a blind man across the street and was surprised that I did not feel revolted when I took his arm."
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Something Happened"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."
Something Happened is Joseph Heller's second novel. Its main character and narrator is Bob Slocum, a businessman who engages in a stream of consciousness narrative about his job, his family, his childhood, his sexual escapades, and his own psyche. Although Something Happened failed to achieve the level of renown that Catch-22 did, it has since developed a cult following, with some considering it o
"Yesterday, I helped a blind man across the street and was surprised that I did not feel revolted when I took his arm."
"I want my little boy back too. I dont want to lose him. I do."
"No one understands that carrying on bravely was the easiest thing to do."
"Waking up is such a peculiar and extraordinary process that Im surprised we are able to manage it successfully so many times while we are still half asleep."
"...if you asked any one of them if he would choose to spend the rest of his life working for the company, he would give you a resounding No!, regardless of what inducements were offered. I was that high once. If you asked me that same question today, I would also give you a resounding No! and add: "I think Id rather die now." But I am making no plans to leave. I have the feeling now that there is no place left for me to go."
"I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly."
"The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe."
"The decades-long draconian approach of the international community to preventing drug dependence is now widely recognised to have been a human disaster, both in the failure to tackle the primary issue and for the additional human suffering caused, including the patients in moderate to severe pain who have been prevented from accessing essential medicines. We need politicians and policymakers to be courageous enough to admit that past policies were misguided, and to rebalance their priorities and approaches in ways that will reduce human suffering."
"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge mens search To vaster issues."
"There is no question that religions have historically played the role of making people contented with their lot. ...such a doctrine would be very appealing to the ruling classes of a society. ...Many societies, for this reason alone, encourage the contentment with your lot that the religious premise of heaven affords."
"Value of a man depends upon his courage; his veracity depends upon his self-respect and his chastity depends upon his sense of honor."
"What counts most is holding on. The growth of a train of thought is not a direct forward flow. There is a succession of spurts separated by intervals of stagnation, frustration, and discouragement. If you hold on, there is bound to come a certain clarification. The unessential components drop off and a coherent, lucid whole begins to take shape."