“The best way to get even with anyone is to put them in the rearview mirror on your way to something better.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Maybe all the schemes of the devil were nothing compared to what man could think up.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I guess Satan was the first superhero [...] In his first adventure, he took the form of a snake to free two prisoners being held naked in a Third World jungle prison by an all-powerful megalomaniac. At the same time, he broadened their diet and introduced them to their own sexuality.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I want you to remember what was good in me, not what was most awful. The people you love should be allowed to keep their worst to themselves.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“When you think about it, most of the good ideas came along to make sin a whole lot easier.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“God saves - but not now, and not here. His salvation is on layaway. Like all grifters, He asks you to pay now and take it on faith that you will receive later. Whereas women offer a different sort of salvation, more immediate and fulfilling. They don't put off their love for a distant, ill-defined eternity but make a gift of it in the here and now, frequently to those who deserve it least. So it was in my case. So it is for many. The devil and woman have been allies against God from the beginning...”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I am; I was. I want to be.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“It was like wondering how evil had come into the world or what happens to a person after he dies: an interesting philosophical exercise, but also curiously pointless, since evil and death happened, regardless of the why and the how and what-it-meant.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“There's only room for one hero in this story-and everyone knows the devil doesn't get to be the good guy.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Music [is] the third rail of life. You grabbed it to shock yourself out of the dull drag of hours. To feel something. To burn with all the emotions you didn't get to experience in the ordinary run of school, TV, and loading the dishwasher after dinner.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“The soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan's care, as is so often said. He always know exactly how to put his finger on it.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Pick a sin we can both live with, is what I ask.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“It's like in the Bible.You can't always get what you want, but if you really need something, you usually find it."
"What part of the Bible is that from?" Ig asked her. "The Gospel of Keith Richards?”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Him and God are supposed to be at war with each other. But if God hates sin and Satan punishes the sinners, aren’t they working the same side of the street? Aren’t the judge and the executioner on the same team?”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I liked AC/DC," Lee said. "If you were going to shoot someone, you'd really want to do it while you were listening to them."
"What about the Beatles? Did you feel like shooting anyone listening to them?"
Lee considered seriously for a moment, then said, "Myself."
At the same time he was laughing, Ig was distressed. Not liking the Beatles was almost as bad as not knowing about them at all.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Some things you didn't give away, no matter how much you owed.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“The language of sin was universal, the original Esperanto.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“I will be waiting by candlelight in our tree house of the mind.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be kicked in the nuts as soon as they try to get back up. That wasn’t in the Bible, but maybe it should’ve been.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“God loves man, we are told, but love must be proved by facts, not reasons. If you were in a boat and did not save a drowning man, you would burn in Hell for certain; yet God, in His wisdom, feels no need to use His power to save anyone from a single moment of suffering, and in spite of his inaction He is celebrated and revered.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“Terry was cool, cooler then Ig would ever be, but he was afraid. His fear narrowed his vision so that he couldn't see anything except what he stood to lose.”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can’t get out of, but I think this is very usual in life”
― Joe Hill, quote from Horns
Joe Hill
Born place: in Bangor, Maine, The United States
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“Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the power to accept anything and move on.”
― Robin Wasserman, quote from Skinned
“When people ask me how we've lived past one hundred, I say, 'Honey, we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!
A. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany”
― Sarah L. Delany, quote from Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years
“Nothing so reduces and drags down a human being as the consciousness of not being loved.”
― Hjalmar Söderberg, quote from Doctor Glas
“Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, quote from Cranford
“Nice to have you back, girl,” he said softly. Then he turned to Alyss. “Ready to go?” She held up a hand. “One thing I have to take care of,” she said. She looked around the camp and spotted Petulengo, lurking guiltily by the goat pen. “Petulengo!” she called. Her voice was high and penetrating and he started, realizing he had been spotted. He looked around, seeking an escape route. But as he did so, Will unslung the massive longbow from his shoulder and casually plucked an arrow from his quiver. Suddenly, escaping didn’t seem like such a good idea. Then Alyss favored Petulengo with her most winning smile. “Don’t be frightened, dear,” she said soothingly. “I just want to say good-bye.” She beckoned to him, smiling encouragingly, and he stepped forward, gradually gaining in confidence as he realized that, somehow, he had won the favor of this young woman. Some of his old swagger returned as he approached and stood before her, urged a little closer by that smile. Underneath the ash and the dirt, he thought, she was definitely a looker. He gave her a smile in return. Petulengo, it has to be said, fancied himself with the ladies. Treat ’em rough and they’ll eat out of your hand, he thought. Then the smile disappeared like a candle being blown out. He felt a sudden jolt of agony in his right foot. Alyss’s heavy boot, part of Hilde’s wardrobe, had stamped down on his instep, just below the ankle. He doubled over instinctively, gasping with pain. Then Alyss pivoted and drove the heel of her open left hand hard into his nose, snapping his head back and sending him reeling. His arms windmilled and he crashed over onto the hard-packed dirt of the compound. He lay groggily, propped up on his elbows, coughing as blood coursed down the back of his throat. “Next time you throw firewood at an old lady,” Alyss told him, all traces of the winning smile gone, “make sure she can’t do that.” She turned to Will and dusted her hands together in a satisfied gesture. “Now I’m ready to go,” she said.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Lost Stories
Between the Lives
Slide
Mind Games
In Time
The Painter
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