"I was used to telling stores that people liked, or that they didn't read. I'd never written anything divisive before. But with this book, people either loved it, or they hated it."
"One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands [...] When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my informants giggled confusedly and said 'They're scared to pass the ocean, it's too far,' pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America." - Richard Dorson
"He did not awake in prison with a feeling of dread; he was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it."
"Shadow checked his conscience. It was quiet, which did not, he had observed, in a prison, mean that he was not in deep shit."
"The words floated through his mind like soap bubbles, there as he read them, gone completely a moment later."
"Wednesday grinned. His smiles were strange things, Shadow decided. They contained no shred of humor, no happiness, no mirth. Wednesday looked like he had learned to smile from a manual."
"Shadow thought there was a lot to be said for bottling up emotions. If you did it long enough and deep enough, he suspected, pretty soon you wouldn't feel anything at all."
"Their priests died without passing on their secrets."
"She told them all these things, and they believed, because she believed."
"'Lady Liberty,' said Wednesday. 'Like so many of the gods that Americans hold dear, a foreigner.'"
"'This is the only country in the world [...] that worries about what it is [...] The rest of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are.'"
"All we have to believe with is our senses: the tools we use to perceive the world, our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted."
"I feel sorry for the professionals whenever they find another confusing skull [...] for they'll talk about the odd, but they won't talk about the impossible, which is where I feel sorry for them, for as soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely, whether it's true or not."
"Death had vanished from the streets of America, thought Shadow; now it happened in hospital rooms and in ambulances."
"Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world [...] It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat."
"If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each others' tragedies. We are insulated from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories."
"'Which way would you walk - the way of the hard truths or the way of fine lies?'"
"We do not remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright lies or with the thick dust of forgetfulness."
"God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city [...] someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers and triumphs over all opposition."
"Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world."
"'You people came to America, you take our sugar cane, potatoes and corn, then you sell us potato chips and caramel popcorn, and we're the ones who get sick.'"
"'But we never built churches. We didn't need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it."
"He wondered whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or it if was something that you found in the end, if you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough."
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