“This is a roadside attraction,' said Wednesday. 'One of the finest. Which means it is a place of power.”

“It occurred to him that the reason he liked Wednesday and Mr. Nancy and the rest of them better than their opposition was pretty straightforward: they might be dirty, and cheap, and their food might taste like shit, but at least they didn’t speak in clichés. And he guessed he would take a roadside attraction, no matter how cheap, how crooked, or how sad, over a shopping mall any day.”

“Wednesday was talking to him. “I’m sorry?” said Shadow. “I said we’re here,” said Wednesday. “You were somewhere else.”

“It's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They knew that something important was happening there, that there was some focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or...well, you get the idea." "There are churches all across the States, though," said Shadow. "In every town. Sometimes on every block. And about as significant, in this context, as dentists' offices. No, in the USA, people still get the call, or some of them, and they feel themselves being called to from the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they've never visited, or by erecting a gigantic bat house in some part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit. Roadside attractions: people feel themselves pulled to places where, in other parts of the world, they would recognize that part of themselves that is truly transcendent, and buy a hot dog, and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath that.”

“Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point.”

“Some things may change," said Wednesday, abruptly. "People, however... People stay the same.”

“This is the only country in the world," said Wednesday, into the stillness, "that worries about what it is.""What?""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.”