Joe Hill, Horns

"There's only room for one hero in this story-and everyone knows the devil doesn't get to be the good guy."

"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."

"Pick a sin we can both live with, is what I ask."

"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?"

"He had been a demon for just two days, but the time when he knew what it was like to be loved seemed to exist in a hazily recalled past, to have been left behind long ago."

"For a time he read his Neil Diamond bible by the firelight. He paused, twisting nervously at 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 matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement."

"I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way."

"He had no doubt that Merrin had called out to God here in this place while she was been raped and killed, in her heart if not with her voice. God's reply had been that due to the high volume of calls she could expect to be on hold until she was dead."

"It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know."

"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."

"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..."