American Gods quotes

You have done me many a good turn.

Mad Sweeney

Good and ill. We're like the wind. We blow both ways.

Mad Sweeney

[in Gaelic] Créd as co tarlaid an cac-sa-dam?! Nach lór rofhulangas?! Is lór chena, níam olc! Níam!!

Easter

Come here, sweet Shadow. Allow me to impart some wisdom. There's far too many secret societies out there. They have no loyalty and no love. They range from barely competent to deeply dangerous.

You don't sound like one of us.

Easter

I'm not one of you.

Oh, yes you are. You're as forgotten and as unloved and unremembered as any of us.

Easter

I'm doing just fine. Happy Easter. Christ is Risen. Hello, boys!

Well, you were before these assholes were born. Until the day that Jesus Christ crawled out of his stinky old grave, folks would paint eggs with dandelions and paprika for her. To exchange as gifts at the first sign of Spring in her name: Ostara.

Easter

Oh, they still do. They still do! On my festival days they still feast on eggs and rabbit and candy and they do it in my name.

Serious question, my dear, I have no doubt that millions upon millions exchange tokens and observe the rituals of your festival all down to the hunting of hidden eggs, but does anybody pray in your name? Do they say it in worship? Well, they mouth your name but they have no idea what it means. None whatsoever. Same every Spring: you do all the work, he gets all the prayers.

Easter

What has gotten into you?!

I feel terrible about this...

Easter

[comforting him] No! No!

It's her day! You took it. You crucified her day! When they started following you, everybody else got burned, in your name! Happy fucking Easter!

Easter

You shut your mouth before I slap it off your goddamn face! [looks shocked at her own words] How dare you? How dare you? How dare you come into my home and uncork all over Jesus of Nazareth, and all the other Jesuses who died on the cross, and even the ones who didn't, how dare you?! These are kind, generous men and they've come to celebrate their day... my day.... goddammit, our day! And you come in here and disrespect them?! They are gods, for God's sake!

They're sons of. They're men who walk the streets. They shake hands, they take shits! What I'm doing here is of no concern to them. This is your day, love. Always has been, always will be.

Shadow

Did you always believe?

Did I always believe? I am belief, Shadow. I don't know how not to believe.

Shadow

I don't think I know how to. I think I maybe don't...don't really believe. You know, I don't really believe any of this. And maybe everything that's happened so far is just some kind of vivid dream. And I don't even know if I can believe that.

Even if you don't believe, you cannot travel in any other way then the road your senses show you. And you must walk that road to the end.

Media

You feel you've been treated unfairly?

Easter

I feel misrepresented in the media.

Media

Put a pillow over that feeling and bear down until it stops kicking. St. Nick took the same deal you did. The only reason why you're relevant today is because Easter is a Christian holiday.

Media

We are the distributors. The platform and the delivery mechanism. We control the story. We control the flow.

Technical Boy

We are the flow.

What you offer is existential crisis aversion. "Don't look over there, look over here." "Don't listen to that, listen to this." You provide a product, an innovative distraction and you keep innovating it and you keep providing it. The beauty of what we do is we only need to inspire.

Technical Boy

Hmm, you don't have the juice. And don't act like your fucking rent boy here is your disciple. Here's the thing: you're old as fuck. Things are never going back to the way that they were. The times, they are a-changing. You can't fight progress.

People create gods when they wonder why things happen. Do you know why things happen? Because gods make them happen. You wanna know how to make good things happen? Be good to your god. You give a little, you get a little. The simplicity of that bargain has always been appealing. That's why we're here, and that's precisely why I matter.

You only matter in matters of war. And there's not going to be a war. We have the guns. We have the firepower. You have the swords and knives and hammers and stone axes. We fight, we win. We don't fight, we win.

Technical Boy

You die out either way.

You are the passenger pigeons and thylacines. Nobody cares about you. It's either going to be a bloodbath, or we'll wait you out and get the whole thing without a fuss. My message to you: don't fight.

Do you have faith, Shadow?

Shadow

What are you?

Do you know me? Do you know what I am? Do you want to know my name?

Shadow

Tell me.

This is what I am called. I am called Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-Eyed. I am also called Highest, and True-Guesser. I am Grimnir, and the Hooded One. I am All-Father, Gondlir, Wand-Bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die! My ravens are Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory! My wolves are Freki and Geri! My horse is the gallows! I am ODIN!!!

Time for a story! 'Cause sometimes, people need reminding of things. We have been fighting since the Portuguese invaded the Gold Coast of Ghana! We stay at war. And just because we are few and they are many, does not mean that we are lost!

When people first came to America, they brought us with them. Me, Loki, Thor, Nancy, Lion-God, all of you. We rode in their minds and took root. But gradually they abandoned us for a better deal, a new life in a new land. Our true believers passed away, or stopped believing. Left us to fend for ourselves, to get by on what little smidgens of belief or worship we could find. And that's what we've done, we've gotten by. We live in cracks at the edges of society. Old, forgotten gods, in a land without gods. But there are New Gods growing in America. They've already replaced us. Now they want to destroy us completely, and if you think otherwise, you are fooling yourselves.

You want us to go to war? You called everyone here for this nonsense? Most of us have lived in peace in this country for a long time. I have seen the New Gods rise, I have seen them fall! I say we wait.

Czernobog is with us. He has brought his hammer to the fight.

Yeah, when the time is right, my hammer will swing. [glances pointedly at Shadow]

And we will need it. Believe me, these New Gods are not going anywhere soon.

From one god of war to another: when I look out my window, I see no battlefields. I hear no war cries.

Then you are not looking hard enough, Mama-Ji.

Odin's right. These New Gods have more followers, more attention, more power than we ever did. Where he is wrong... is in thinking this is a bad thing. They showed me how to use their tools. Now I can bring my message directly to my people. I accept my worship, my way, and I grow in power. The choice is yours. Evolve or die.

Technical Boy

Media! Oh, Media! Come out, come out, wherever you are. All this normy noise is making me itch. [looks at neon sign for Xie Comm] Hey! I see you. Come on, Mr. World wants you. [reading signs] "We can't drive into the future using only our rearview mirror." No shit. Come on, get in the car.

Technical Boy

The twentieth century is ancient history. Like the faces you wear! Bowie and Marilyn and I Love Lucy - they are so fucking retro! And art? Art is irrelevant!

Media

[as a voice on Technical Boy's iPhone] Art is the most valuable means of insight into the direction of our collective purpose.

Technical Boy

You're looking for insight.

Media

The appetite for distraction is infinite.

Technical Boy

You're looking for insight.

Media

[as a voice on a TV commercial in a shop window] I can choke them with trivia, drown them in passive pleasures, and devastate their spirituality with baby talk.

Technical Boy

Wednesday scared the shit outta you, so now you're back in school.

Media

There is no distinction between education and entertainment. I am adapting, learning to survive.

Technical Boy

If I go back emptyhanded, he'll downvote my ass to obsolete!

Media

I will not launch before I'm prepared.

Technical Boy

World needs you back, right now! Get your incomprehensively aggravat--

Media

[on iPhone] Goodbye.

Technical Boy

Fatal flaw. Underestimating me. You think you can ghost in my machine? I am mankind's greatest achievement. I am the compass rose. I am fucking binary! Without me, shit don't spin. You can't hide. So lick your wounds, strap on whichever do makes you feel the most-est, put your face on, and come out! Come on! Mr. World needs you. Do not make me hunt you. Out of respect, I'm gonna give you a minute. Good talk. [takes off his virtual reality goggles and walks away] Fuck!

Mr. Nancy

You old as dirt, bird-beak. Why the fuck you didn't ride the carousel?

I choose peace.

Mr. Nancy

[scoffs] Egyptians told tales of the sacred Book of Thoth, which contains the secrets of the gods and brings misery, pain, and suffering to anyone who reads it.

And grants a bird's-eye view to he who writes it. I am old as dirt, and I have seen things as you have. Why do you bring this... rage to my doorstep?

Mr. Nancy

You ever notice how traveling makes your mind roll thunder, like a train moving down the track? Except you don't know where the fuck that mind train is headed. And then all of a sudden, plop! An idea shits in your head, and you think that shit smells good. Peace is a beautiful but shitty idea. Only a goddess can adorn the sarcophagus of a god. So help me understand what these New Gods giveth... and what they taketh away.

Your thirst does not inspire our confidence, only our curiosity.

Mr. Nancy

[chuckles] I am not a god... in the sense that I can tolerate exploitation, oppression, and repression. My worshippers know freedom ain't free. They know the most potent weapon of control for the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. They know slavery is not a condition. Slavery is a cult! Human trafficking is a cult! Slavery got a rebrand, like mutherfuckin' the alt-right! And snatched - another one gone. Every thirty seconds, another chocolate-brown/caramel/yellow/high-yellow/redbone refugee girl with melanin in her skin gets snatched. Every. Thirty. Seconds. And to make matters worse, these dazzling new plantation owners built a pipeline to take our children from school to prison quicker than a cut can bleed. And the lucky ones go from school to the NFL, where they don't even let them niggers take a knee. They've been programmed from birth with shitty food options, contaminated drinking water, gun violence, police brutality, and trauma after trauma after trauma. PTSD? No therapy. Missing? No Amber Alert. Alone? Vulnerable. Snatched - another one gone.

I hear you, brother. And I hear them. I hear each voice, and I write each name.

We have lived long enough to know these troubles are timeless. Suffering is not sacred, and moral law is final.

And sooner or later, they all lay before me. War need not be the answer.

Mr. Nancy

[chuckles again and turns to Bilquis] My queen. The world assumes white people are naturally good. So when something bad happens, it's a good person doing a bad thing. They assume black people are naturally bad, so when something good happens, it's only a matter of time before that animal's true nature rears its ugly head. How much longer can we afford to wait? You keep track of days, numbering the years for scribes that record human history - do you see progress? I count one, two, three African gods in this room! And two of them want to exercise restraint?! And let the donkey-work continue, while you live your best life?! War is upon us! An old white lady is dead. Wednesday avenges Zorya Vechernyaya, but if it was a dead black lady, like this sweet old soul, Czernobog's hammer... [clicks tongue and wiggles finger] would not swing.