How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #13
It was an ideal arrangement for everyone but the dead man in Yossarian's tent, who was killed over the target the day he arrived.
"I didn't kill him!" Milo kept replying passionately to Yossarian's angry protest. "I wasn't even there that day, I tell you. Do you think I was down there on the ground firing an antiaircraft gun when the planes came over?
"But you organized the whole thing, didn't you?" Yossarian shouted back at him in the velvet darkness cloaking the path leading past the still vehicles of the motor pool to the open-air movie theater.
"And I didn't organize anything," Milo answered indignantly, drawing great agitated sniffs of air in through his hissing, pale, twitching nose. "The Germans have the bridge, and we were going to bomb it, whether I stepped into the picture or not. I just saw a wonderful opportunity to make some profit out of the mission, and I took it. What's so terrible about that?"
"What so terrible about it? Milo, a man in my tent was killed on that mission before he could even unpack his bags."
"But I didn't kill him."
"You got a thousand dollars extra for it."
"But I didn't kill him. I wasn't even there, I tell you. I was in Barcelona buying olive oil and skinless and boneless sardines, and I've got the purchase orders to prove it. And I didn't get the thousand dollars. That thousand dollars went to the syndicate, and everybody got a share, even you." Milo was appealing to Yossarian from the bottom of his soul. "Look, I didn't start this war, Yossarian…I'm just trying to put it on a businesslike basis. Is anything wrong with that? You know, a thousand dollars ain't such a bad price for a medium bomber and a crew. If I can persuade the Germans to pay me a thousand dollars for every plane they shoot down, why shouldn't I take it?
"Because you're dealing with the enemy, that's why. Can't you understand that we're fighting a war? People are dying. Look around you, for Christ's sake!"
Milo shook his head with weary forbearance. "And the Germans are not our enemies," he declared. "Oh, I know what you're going to say. Sure we're at war with them. But the Germans are also members in good standing of the syndicate, and it's my job to protect their rights as shareholders….Don't you understand that I have to respect the sanctity of my contract with Germany?"
"No," Yossarian rebuffed him harshly. (24.45-55)
Milo is blind to the fact that he has a share of blame in Mudd's death. Because he can only see the world in terms of the syndicate, Milo doesn't see himself as holding any responsibility in killing Mudd. The "velvet darkness" through which Yossarian and Milo argue makes Milo literally blind and makes both men unable to see or stomach the other's point of view.
Quote #14
"Where do you sleep?"
Swiftly the captain ducked down into a crouch and began backing away. "You too?" he cried frantically.
"Oh, no," cried the chaplain. "I swear to you."
You do want to cut my throat!" the captain hissed. (25.69-72)
Suffering from paranoia, Captain Flume mistakes the chaplain's honest question about his woodland lifestyle for a threat to his life.
Quote #15
[Nurse Cramer:] "Sue Ann, he said something absolutely horrible to me. Oh, I can't even make myself repeat it!"
"She called me a gear," Yossarian said. (26.61-62)
Both people overreact in the conversation. Nurse Cramer treats Yossarian's order to "screw" or get lost as something much worse than it really is. She doesn't understand his joking tone. Yossarian's intent was not to hurt her. Yossarian, on the other hand, misinterprets Cramer's sentence. She said he was "like a gear," not a gear itself. Language here is both misunderstood and misquoted.