The Greatest Story Ever Told

American Gods 2×4

The Father: Listen.
The Son: I know Bach.
The Father: Listen... He'd only just returned from a trip to find that his wife had died. Bach had already lost three children. He would lose seven more. This is grief. And yet... The rising notes of joy... shattering his own rules. Can you hear it?... This is how men like me pray.

Mr. Ibis: Coroners are a political appointment around here. His job is to kick the corpse. If it doesn't kick him back, he signs the death certificate. I'm what they call a prosector.

Mr. Wednesday: Only humans could've come up with monogamy, an unnatural concept. Enjoy your life, my boy. Fuck it, embrace it, exercise neither temperance nor restraint, and leave the past where it belongs: in the past.

Shadow Moon: What's in St. Louis?
Mr. Wednesday: Big city, big money. ... Money is the most influential god in America. Untouchable asshole, but his stock never falls.

Mr. Wednesday: .... this isn't actually a piece of paper; it's a story. And the story that you've heard over and over and over again. And it's been drummed into you that this is worth something. This is of value. No matter what country, culture, or religion. The whole world loves... money. The greatest story ever told.

Mr. Wednesday: So, Money. We get him on our side, Mr. World won't mean shit.

Shadow Moon: Don't you work in Wisconsin?
Mama-Ji: I am at every Motel America. Entrepreneurship is not some picnic.
Mr. Wednesday: Mama-Ji and her followers own more than half the motels in America.
Mama-Ji: And we don't achieve this by sitting on our asses or grifting about like this one.

Mama-Ji: You think America was eager to hand over her money bags to the hungry, the tired, and the poor? We battle for every goddamn scrap.
Mr. Wednesday: You love it.
Mama-Ji: Victory is sweet on the tongue, and profit is sweet on the pocket.
Mr. Wednesday: But you miss the real battles, don't you Kali, eh? The screams and the cries... I recall the day you slew Raktabija. The only sound that day was the whisper of the wind whistling through the blood-soaked grass.
Mama-Ji: We had a good time, huh?

Mr. Nancy: 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.
Mr. Ibis: And grants a bird's-eye view to He... Who writes it.

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.

Mr. Nancy: 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.

Mr. Ibis: We have lived long enough to know these troubles are timeless. Suffering is not sacred.
Bilquis: And moral law is final. Sooner or later they all lay before me. War need not be the answer.

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Technical Boy: Argus was a relic, a desiccating, necrotising, geriatric, organic sack of redundancies. CCTV? Fuck that noise! I fart out a coltan-encased microchip in cherry pink and they line up for miles. Miles! To carry trackers, give up their locations, bank numbers, fucking facial IDs! An endless catalogue of every fuck, every bite, every disgusting nose hair. Every dirty little secret. Every whisper they thought no one could hear...

Mr. Wednesday: No debit, no credit. Oh, so, no debit, no credit. Not even a fucking car loan? What are you, some off-the-grid freak?... Do you know how much Money hates that?

Bilquis: He was not content. He was a rebel, a troublemaker. They say He died for your sins, but that is not the truth. He died because He angered the men in power. He refused to be cowed... controlled. And now look at the power He wields, the worship He commands. He was onto something.

Mr. World: There isn't a need to purchase candy. I retired a God today.

Mr. World: Have you seen what's happened to the world? It isn't 5s, 10s, or 20s anymore. It isn't cash or gold. It's zeros and ones, digitized and encrypted, sent down fiber-optic cables at the speed of light to accounts at banks with no physical location.
Mr. Wednesday: ... Money loves profit. And war is always profitable. It also moves people more than anything else. It inflames their passions, something you would know nothing about. And the more passionate they get, the more they spend, spend, spend. You know that, Money.

Mr. World: You sit at the crossing of two rivers, waiting for a steamship that will never come. Your kind aren't dying; they're dead.

The Bookkeeper: I'm honored to have the big dogs in the God game begging at my table. But money doesn't make emotional investments or invest in emotional entities. Too much risk in such ventures. Not enough opportunity.
Mr. Wednesday: You could always hedge your bets!...

Mr. Wednesday: I'm gonna win this one. People like me more than they like you.
Mr. World: I prefer to be feared.

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