Anansi Boys (American Gods, #2)

by Neil Gaiman

Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That’s the power of songs.

the name would creep in, infiltrating the new part of his life just as cockroaches invade the cracks and the world behind the fridge in a new kitchen,

He sat at home that night, waiting for the phone to ring or for a knock on the door, in much the same spirit that a man kneeling at the guillotine might wait for the blade to kiss his neck; still, the doorbell did not ring.

They walked out of the wine bar together, Rosie with a spring in her step, Fat Charlie like a man going to the gallows.

in Florida air as thick as soup.

Mrs. Dunwiddy was old, and she looked it. There were geological ages that were probably younger than Mrs. Dunwiddy.

If you happened to see Grahame Coats and immediately found yourself thinking of an albino ferret in an expensive suit, you would not be the first.

The smile that came through the crack in the door could have illuminated a small village.

“What is this?” “Funeral wine, the kind you drink for gods. They haven’t made it for a long time. It’s seasoned with bitter aloes and rosemary, and with the tears of brokenhearted virgins.”

Properly deployed, a smile like that could launch a holy war.

Fat Charlie wondered what Rosie’s mother would usually hear in a church. Probably just cries of “Back! Foul beast of Hell!” followed by gasps of “Is it alive?”

She tasted the porridge as if it might bite her back.

Mrs. Dunwiddy took a large handful of wet cornbread and rammed it into the turkey with a force that would have made the turkey’s eyes water, if it still had any.

It’s like the mafia, thought Fat Charlie. A postmenopausal mafia.

Everything hurt. Everything. I hurt in places nobody ain’t discover yet.”