“Listen,” whispers Dario. “How still it is.” They stand under a darkened archway, the only sound a whispered squeak where docked gondolas rub against each other. Negative ions from the lapping water...”

“How foolish of me to have disregarded you, dear goddess. I wont make that mistake again.”

“Gods are cold. War, killing, and stabbing each other in the back is really what we do best.”

“People don't believe in gods because they can't wrap their minds around the idea of someone allowing all the terrible things in the world to happen.”

“The sight of a worm excites my reverence more than all the gods men have invented.”

“For the natural polytheist, whose gods arise in and from the natural material world ... Our gods not only have transcendent eyes and metaphysical hands. They have antlers and feathers, hooves and s...”

“I sing to you of many more gods, gods of wind and water, gods of each mineral and the events that created them. I sing to you of the gods of protons, of quarks, of atomic forces binding and holding...”