The Fireman

by Joe Hill

Someone probably a lot smarter than me said hell is other people. I say you’re in hell when you don’t give to someone who needs, because you can’t bear to have less. What you are giving away then is your own soul.

To live for others was to live fully; to live only for yourself, a cold kind of death. The sugar was sweeter when you gave it to someone else to taste.

The problem with role models is they teach you roles.

The people in charge can always justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. A slaughter here, a little torture there. It becomes moral to do things that would be immoral if an ordinary individual did ’em.

“Look at all the lights! It’s like where Santa lives! It’s like we walked all the way to Christmasland!” Harper signed, “I think you mean the North Pole,” but Nick wasn’t paying attention anymore, craning his head to see into the pavilion.