Famous aphorism in book, movie, or TV show?

Question

I have found one that is fairly good but I'm hoping there is a more famous one that I can explain...thanks for your help!

Answer 1

How about "Catch-22" the book and the movie:

"The phrase "Catch-22" comes from the book of that name by Joseph Heller (1923-1999), published in 1961. Catch-22 is a wonderful book, full of dark humor and absurdity, satirizing war, military bureaucracy, and by extension modern life and the ways in which they destroy the human spirit.

The word "catch" of course is used in the sense of snare, snag or entanglement.

The story is set in Italy in World War II. The main character, Captain Yossarian, is a bombardier (as Heller had been) who wants to get out of flying potentially deadly combat missions. So does his tent-mate, Orr. The easiest way to get out of flying more missions is to plead insanity. Heller writes:

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 he 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.

In short, Catch-22 is "heads I win, tails you lose." If you can, you can't, and if you can't, you can. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Whenever you try to behave sensibly in a crazy world, there's a catch."