How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
There were no miracles; prayers went unanswered, and misfortune tramped with equal brutality on the virtuous and the corrupt […] (25.129)
The chaplain almost loses his faith here after failing to meet Major Major and help Yossarian. Worse still, Whitcomb outdoes him. The tragedy is that the chaplain is a virtuous man subject to the same cruelty as everyone else, even those not as faithful or good-hearted as he.
Quote #11
In a way it was all Yossarian's fault, for if he had not moved the bomb line during the Big Siege of Bologna, Major -------- de Coverley might still be around to save him, and if he had not stocked the enlisted men's apartment with girls who had no other place to live, Nately might never have fallen in love with his whore as she sat naked from the waist down in the room full of grumpy blackjack players who ignored her. (26.1)
It is only by chance that Major -------- de Coverley goes to Bologna, thinking it safe, and only by chance that Nately falls in love at Yossarian's blackjack game.
Quote #12
"They had no right to lie to me!" Colonel Scheisskopf protested, his eyes wetting with indignation.
"Of course they had a right," General Peckem snapped with cold and calculated severity…"People have a right to do anything that's not forbidden by law, and there's no law against lying to you." (29.30-29.31)
This passage is cynical because it assumes that, given the chance, man will automatically act in the worst way possible. It assumes that people are naturally base and morally corrupt.