It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.

How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow.

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

With American Gods I was trying very, very consciously - there was a level at which it was a little like trying to write a novel in French - you know, "this novel is to be written in American."

I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful.

All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.