“The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss. 'Pock! There,' said Czernobog. 'Is done.' There was a smile on his face that Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer's day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard. 'Czernobog?' asked Shadow. Then, 'Are you Czernobog?''Yes. For today,' said the old man. 'By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog. But today, is still Czernobog.' 'Then why? Why didn't you kill me when you could?'The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a pack in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought. 'Because,' said the old man, after some time, 'there is blood. But there is also gratitude. And it has been a long, long winter.”

“What's it like then?" asked Old Bailey. "Being dead?" The marquis sighed. And then he twisted his lips up into a smile, and with a glitter of his old self, he replied, "Live long enough, Old Bailey, and you can find out for yourself.”

“At the end of the street was a large glass box with a female mannequin inside it, dressed as a gypsy fortune teller.“Now,” said Wednesday, “at the start of any quest or enterprise it behooves us to consult the Norns.”He dropped a coin into the slot. With jagged, mechanical motions, the gypsy lifted her arm and lowered it once more. A slip of paper chunked out of the slot.Wednesday took it, read it, grunted, folded it up and put it in his pocket.“Aren’t you going to show it to me? I’ll show you mine,” said Shadow.“A man’s fortune is his own affair,” said Wednesday, stiffly. “I would not ask to see yours.”Shadow put his own coin into the slot. He took his slip of paper. He read it.EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING.YOUR LUCKY NUMBER IS NONE.YOUR LUCKY COLOUR IS DEAD. Motto:LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.Shadow made a face. He folded the fortune up and put it inside his pocket.”

“Fuck you," said Czernobog. "Fuck you and fuck your mother and fuck the fucking horse you fucking rode in on. You will not even die in battle. No warrior will taste your blood. No one alive will take your life. You will die a soft, poor death. You will die with a kiss on your lips and a lie in your heart.”

“The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it."What do you want?' it repeated.He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not.'Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you.Why?''I wanted to meet you,' he said, without looking around. 'I want to live for ever.' His voice crackedas he said it.He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could alreadyfeel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life.The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him severallong seconds to recognise it as laughter.'This is not life,' said the voice.It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard.”

“I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream, and he agreed, But said it was the desert's dream not his. And he told me that in a year or so, when he had aged enough for any man, then he would walk into the wind, until he saw the tents. This time, he said, he would go on with them.”

“I'm the idiot box. I'm the TV. I'm the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I'm the boob tube. I'm the little shrine the family gathers to adore.' 'You're the television? Or someone in the television?' 'The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.' 'What do they sacrifice?' asked Shadow.'Their time, mostly,' said Lucy. 'Sometimes each other.' She raised two fingers, blew imaginary gunsmoke from the tips. Then she winked, a big old I Love Lucy wink.'You're a God?' said Shadow.Lucy smirked, and took a ladylike puff of her cigarette. 'You could say that,' she said.”