How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Maybe it would be a lot better if you were dead and buried on the hill across the river from Shale City. (2.22)
Joe doesn't just wish for death; he also wishes to be home—even if that means he has to lie in a grave at home. The fact that Joe will spend the rest of his life away from home and away from any of his loved ones only heightens the sense that he's living a kind of death-in-life.
Quote #2
The hand it was on is dead and it wasn't meant to be on rotten flesh. It was meant always to be on my living finger on my living hand because it meant life. (3.17)
As parts of Joe's body "die" (through amputation), he wonders what it means to be alive in more than a technical sense. It's freaky to think about how parts of you can "die" while you're still alive, but in this case, at least, it illustrates that life is more than the just the state of being alive: it's also about the actions and experiences that constitute what you call your life. This passage also makes us realize that at least half of Joe's body is literally dead.
Quote #3
Bill Harper was a lucky guy. Bill Harper had got Diane and then he had been killed. (4.45)
The grass is always greener, obviously. Joe is clearly being bitter here, but he's also pointing out that there seems to be something clean and easy about death that makes it different from the kind of suffering he has to endure for the rest of his life. Considering how much value Joe places on life, things must be really awful for him to consider death preferable.