Time & Perspective Quote by Joseph Heller

Heller’s line lands like a tired joke told with a straight face: not a denial of the supernatural so much as an indictment of the era. “I don’t believe in miracles” reads, at first blush, like hardheaded rationalism. The kicker - “because it’s been a long time since we’ve had any” - flips belief into a consumer complaint. Faith isn’t rejected on principle; it’s rejected on performance. The world has failed to deliver.

That sly conditional is classic Heller: the logic is intentionally a little crooked, the way bureaucratic logic is crooked in Catch-22. Miracles become a measurable public good, like competent leadership or moral clarity, something you’d notice if it showed up and you’d certainly notice its absence. The subtext is less “miracles aren’t real” than “look around: what would count as proof anymore?” In a landscape shaped by war, institutions that grind people down, and promises that curdle into procedure, optimism starts to sound like gullibility.

There’s also a quiet grief under the cynicism. “We’ve had” implies a shared history, almost a lost entitlement: a time when events could still surprise us in the direction of justice, mercy, reprieve. The line keeps its bite because it refuses the comforting purity of atheism or belief. It’s an exhausted pragmatism, a worldview formed by waiting for rescue and watching the clock run out.