The sound of an English accent distracted her and lifted her spirits. She associated English accents with singing teapots, schools for witchcraft, and the science of deduction. This wasn't, she knew, terribly sophisticated of her, but she had no real guilt about it. She felt the English were themselves to blame for her feelings. They had spent a century relentlessly marketing their detectives and wizards and nannies, and they had to live with the results.

— Joe Hill

They had been Vince's brothers in a way, and Race was his son, and you couldn't drive a man's family to the earth and expect to live.

— Joe Hill

To be honest, I think cell phones were invented by the devil.

— Joe Hill

Vic didn't have a car and probably spent a hundred and sixty hours a week at home. The house smelled of piss-soaked diapers and engine parts, and the sink was always full. In retrospect Vic was only surprised she didn't go crazy sooner. She was surprised that more young mothers didn't lose it. When your tits had become canteens and the soundtrack to your life was hysterical tears and mad laughter, how could anyone expect you to remain sane?

— Joe Hill

Whatever your sexual orientation, whatever your ethnicity, whatever your age or personal experience, it is my hope you will find a hero somewhere here you can relate to, that speaks to the world as you see it. Even better: there is a good chance you will find some heroes who are deeply, fundamentally different from yourself. I don't have much patience with readers who yearn to explore incredible worlds and mind-bending situations but grow cold at the idea of imagining their way into different political ideas, different faiths, a different gender, a different skin, a different life.

— Joe Hill

Why am I not good at anything?"" You're a good dad."" It ain't rocket science." No, Vic thought. It was harder.

— Joe Hill

Why is there evil in the world? Because sometimes you just wanna fucking have it, and you don’t care who gets hurt.

— Joe Hill

Wouldn’t be very fair to the rest of them, would it?” Harper asked. “They’re not bad people, most of them. All they want is to be safe.”“Isn’t that always a permission slip for ugliness and cruelty? All they want is to be safe, and they don’t care who they have to destroy to stay that way. And the people who want to kill us, the Cremation Crews, all they want is safety, too!

— Joe Hill

Writers were as parasitic, she supposed, as the spore itself.

— Joe Hill

You loved me as hard as you knew how. I'd give anything to go back and love you better...

— Joe Hill