[tachiri]

I'm putting these all together because they're all from the same book.

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting.
That is the tale; the rest is detail.

"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."

Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.

Would you believe that all the gods that people have ever imagined are still with us today? ... And that there are new gods out there, gods of computers and telephones and whatever, and that they all seem to think there isn't room for them both in the world. And that some kind of war is kind of likely.

"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not fooling a soul."

“Which path should I take?” he asked. “Which one is safe?”
“Take one, and you cannot take the other,” she said. “But neither path is safe. Which way would you walk — the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies?”
“Truths,” he said. “I’ve come too far for more lies.”
She looked sad. “There will be a price, then,” she said.