American Gods

American Gods, a novel by Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite books in the world.  As a matter of fact, my original copy of both American Gods and it’s sequel Anansi Boys are both in pretty bad shape.  That’s perfectly alright though.  Books are meant to be read, and there’s nothing better than a book that you want to read over and over.

I first read these books in college.  American Gods was a book I picked up during my freshman year, as something to pass the time between classes.  It was the first Neil Gaiman book I read, and since then, I’ve read all of his books – even the ones for children.  And I still pick up and re-read that copy of American Gods at least once a year.  It’s not just a story, it’s a book of concepts and ideas wrapped in a wonderful and exciting tale of men and gods.

With all my reading, I’m finally going to retire my original copy of the book.  I got a great leather-bound edition recently that I also plan on putting to good use, but unlike with my paperback copies of the book, I don’t intend to underline the lines that catch me by surprise and make me think.  I guess I’m a sucker for the beauty of a good hard cover book.  While my paperback books are full of notes, I’ve never made a single mark in any of my hardcover books.

With that in mind, I know it’s going to be a little more difficult for me to quickly find and reference those passages that have meant so much to me.  That’s why I wanted to record one or two of my favorites from each chapter, here.  I know it will help me on those days I just need a little perspective and in doing so, I hope they will bring a little inspiration to you – even if it is only to inspire you to read the book.

Chapter 1

Information and knowledge: two currencies which have never gone out of style.

Chapter 2

..language is a virus and that religion is an operating system and that prayers are just so much … spam.

Chapter 3

Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.

Chapter 4

The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal sketched simplicity for children, or the easily bored. For the most part it is uninspected, unimagined, unthought, a representation of the thing, and not the thing itself.

Chapter 5

“[America] is the only country in the world,” said Wednesday, into the stillness, ” that worries about what it is.”

Chapter 6

You shine like a beacon in a dark world.

Chapter 7

“You’re [screwed] up, Mister.  But you’re cool”
“I believe that’s what they call the human condition,” said Shadow.  “Thanks for the company.”

Chapter 8

Women survive their men.  Men – men like him – don’t live long when their women are gone.

… as sure as water’s wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end.

Chapter 9

There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right.  The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do.  And that is what makes them dangerous.

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore.  It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not fooling a soul.”

 Chapter 10

…one is beset at every side by invitation – invitations such that it would take a man of stone, heartless, mindless, and curiously devoid of avarice, to decline them.

Chapter 11

We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of stories.  The shape does not change; there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. … As original as any other tale, as unique as any other life.  Lives are snowflakes – forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod … but still unique.

Chapter 12

The war had begun and nobody saw it.  The storm was lowering and nobody knew it.

Chapter 13

“Organizing gods is like herding cats into straight lines.  The don’t take naturally to it.”

Chapter 14

Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…

Chapter 15

It’s easy, said someone in the back of his head.  There’s a trick to it.  You do it or you die.

Chapter 16

“… I never believed in you. Because I don’t know much about Egyptian mythology.  Because I didn’t expect this. What happened to St. Peter and the Pearly Gates?”
“… It doesn’t matter that you didn’t believe in us, … we believed in you.”

Chapter 17

When they leave, the leave bemused, uncertain of why they came, of what they have seen, of whether they had a good time or not.

Chapter 18

Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.

Even Nothing cannot last forever.

People believe, thought Shadow.  It’s what people do.  the believe.  and then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations.  People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales.  People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock solid belief, that makes things happen.

Chapter 19

One describes a tale best by telling the tale.  You see? The way one describes a story to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story.  It is a balancing act and it is a dream.  The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory.  The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless.  the tale is the map that is the territory.  You must remember this.

Chapter 20

The only thing I’ve really learned about dealing with gods is that if you make a deal, you keep it.  They get to break all the rules they want.  We don’t.

Last Thoughts

Now… if you made it all the way through those quotes, I really do hope you take the time to read this book (and maybe even it’s sequel).  If they do nothing else for you they will give you another perspective from which to view your world.  If you’ve read this book already, I’d love to know what you think about it.  What did you love, and what did you hate?  Was there any one part or quote that really hit home with you?