The boy had the towering arrogance only seen in the greatest of artists and all nine-year-old boys.

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."

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.

We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves.

I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who I was, and what exactly was looking at the face in the mirror. If the face I was looking at wasn't me, and I knew it wasn't, because I would still be me whatever happened to my face, then what was me? And what was watching?

I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.

This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.