Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The writing is top-notch, with a perfect blend of humor, satire, and heart. The characters are lovable and well-developed, and the plot is engaging and unpredictable. The combination of Gaiman and Pratchett gives it a wonderfully unique tone – it’s irreverent, funny, and thoughtful.

This was my introduction to both authors, and I am absolutely hooked. I plan on digging further into Neil Gaiman’s world after this. I can also finally watch the show, which has me very excited.

Highlights

IT WAS A NICE DAY.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on Location 44-44  2024-03-10 21:51:32



Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 7 | Location 91-92  2024-03-10 21:55:05



God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 10 | Location 121-125  2024-03-10 21:56:58



One of the nice things about Time, Crowley always said, was that it was steadily taking him further away from the fourteenth century, the most bloody boring hundred years on God’s, excuse his French, Earth.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 14 | Location 162-163  2024-03-10 22:00:24



Sister Mary headed through the nighttime hospital with the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness safely in her arms. She found a bassinet and laid him down in it.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 25 | Location 330-332  2024-03-11 21:56:07



Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 26 | Location 349-349  2024-03-11 21:57:23



It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 26 | Location 353-355  2024-03-11 21:57:55



They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 33 | Location 458-459  2024-03-12 22:59:35



It meant that Crowley had been allowed to develop Manchester, while Aziraphale had a free hand in the whole of Shropshire. Crowley took Glasgow, Aziraphale had Edinburgh (neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes,* but both reported it as a success).
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 39 | Location 550-553  2024-03-12 21:56:04



AND NOW IT WAS THREE O’CLOCK. The Antichrist had been on Earth for fifteen hours, and one angel and one demon had been drinking solidly for three of them.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 47 | Location 646-647  2024-03-12 23:07:25



And so it went. The Arrangement worked perfectly. A no-score win.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 62 | Location 865-866  2024-03-13 22:44:45



“He’s too normal.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t like it. There’s something wrong. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 63 | Location 890-891  2024-03-13 22:46:19



There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man-made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 71 | Location 979-980  2024-03-13 22:52:44



The hound waited. This was the moment. The Naming. This would give it its purpose, its function, its identity. Its eyes glowed a dull red, even though they were a lot closer to the ground, and it dribbled into the nettles. “I’ll call him Dog,” said his Master, positively.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 75 | Location 1028-1030  2024-03-14 22:55:31



the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn’t have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn’t a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley’s opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 77 | Location 1058-1060  2024-03-14 22:58:31



IT IS SAID THAT THE DEVIL HAS ALL THE BEST TUNES. This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 79 | Location 1093-1095  2024-03-14 23:00:48



“All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that.” “Terrible.” “Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.” “That was nasty.” “Sorry. Couldn’t resist it.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 100 | Location 1405-1408  2024-03-15 23:37:53



The trouble with trying to find a brown-covered book among brown leaves and brown water at the bottom of a ditch of brown earth in the brown, well, grayish light of dawn, was that you couldn’t. It wasn’t there.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 104 | Location 1459-1461  2024-03-15 23:41:14



What the collection did not have was a copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, and Aziraphale walked into the room holding it as a keen philatelist might hold a Mauritius Blue that had just turned up on a postcard from his aunt.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 105 | Location 1477-1478  2024-03-15 23:43:31



“I don’t see why witches shouldn’t have their own newspaper. With stories about all the latest spells and that. My father gets Angler’s Mail, and I bet there’s more witches than anglers.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 117 | Location 1611-1613  2024-03-17 00:12:05



Pepper’s given first names were Pippin Galadriel Moonchild.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 119 | Location 1629-1629  2024-03-17 00:13:42



They had once—at Adam’s instigation—tried a health food diet for a whole afternoon. Their verdict was that you could live very well on healthy food provided you had a big cooked lunch beforehand.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 120 | Location 1647-1648  2024-03-17 00:15:39



Notoriety wasn’t as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 129 | Location 1784-1785  2024-03-18 23:03:10



Twenty-seven people were got out of bed in quick succession and they got another fifty-three out of bed, because if there is one thing a man wants to know when he’s woken up in a panic at 4:00 A.M., it’s that he’s not alone.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 137 | Location 1894-1896  2024-03-18 23:11:53



Sable sat back and watched the money roll in. He watched CHOW™ gradually fill the ecological niche that used to be filled by the old, untrademarked food.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 142 | Location 1920-1921  2024-03-19 23:07:23



He stood up, took his tray over to the PLEASE DISPOSE OF YOUR REFUSE WITH CARE receptacle, and dumped the whole thing. If you had told him that there were children starving in Africa he would have been flattered that you’d noticed.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 144 | Location 1947-1948  2024-03-19 23:09:41



Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 151 | Location 2047-2049  2024-03-19 23:18:06



Aziraphale was the first angel ever to own a computer.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 151 | Location 2051-2051  2024-03-19 23:18:25



He picked up his pen and wrote down: “XXXV QVVX.” Translated, it meant: “Have found Lost Continent of Atlantis. High Priest has just won quoits contest.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 154 | Location 2096-2097  2024-03-19 23:21:30



“Churches? What good did they ever do? They’m just as bad. Same line o’ business, nearly. You can’t trust them to stamp out the Evil One, ’cos if they did, they’d be out o’ that line o’ business.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 164 | Location 2254-2256  2024-03-20 23:28:58



The old man may have had all his own teeth, but only because no one else could possibly have wanted them; just one of them, placed under the pillow, would have made the Tooth Fairy hand in its wand.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 165 | Location 2265-2267  2024-03-20 23:29:59



IT WAS VERY EARLY on Saturday morning, on the last day of the world, and the sky was redder than blood.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 175 | Location 2372-2373  2024-03-21 22:47:17



Shadwell had impressed upon him that, although witches were the primary target, a good Witchfinder should never pass up the chance to do a quick exorcism, and should have his field kit with him at all times.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 179 | Location 2435-2437  2024-03-21 22:52:00



Her name was Agnes Nutter. She was the Witchfinder Army’s great failure.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 184 | Location 2499-2500  2024-03-21 22:57:16



There was much subsequent debate as to whether this had been sent by God or by Satan, but a note later found in Agnes Nutter’s cottage indicated that any divine or devilish intervention had been materially helped by the contents of Agnes’s petticoats, wherein she had with some foresight concealed eighty pounds of gunpowder and forty pounds of roofing nails.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 185 | Location 2518-2520  2024-03-21 22:59:24



“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you, sir, that your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category, sir.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 187 | Location 2547-2548  2024-03-22 23:13:58



“CO2 level up point five percent,” it rasped, giving him a meaningful look. “You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don’t you?”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 188 | Location 2559-2561  2024-03-22 23:14:13



The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 192 | Location 2615-2616  2024-03-22 23:18:33



“You grow up readin’ about pirates and cowboys and spacemen and stuff, and jus’ when you think the world’s all full of amazin’ things, they tell you it’s really all dead whales and chopped-down forests and nucular waste hang-in’ about for millions of years. ’Snot worth growin’ up for, if you ask my opinion.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 204 | Location 2801-2804  2024-03-23 23:33:25



Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vroooom.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 215 | Location 2957-2958  2024-03-23 23:45:43



Beneath the thunders of the upper deep, as Aziraphale and Tennyson both knew, Far, far beneath in the abyssal sea / The kraken sleepeth.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 216 | Location 2975-2976  2024-03-24 23:17:54



Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren’t deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors—doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 232 | Location 3206-3207  2024-03-25 22:56:06



But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 236 | Location 3263-3264  2024-03-25 23:00:47



I mean, if it takes a red sky at night to delight a sailor, what does it take to amuse the man who operates the computers on a supertanker? Or is it shepherds who are delighted at night?
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 288 | Location 4014-4015  2024-03-26 23:06:00



Crowley had started the journey in his Bentley, and he was damned if he wasn’t going to finish it in the Bentley as well.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 289 | Location 4034-4035  2024-03-26 23:07:23



“That’s right,” said Pepper. “Because,” she added, “if we beat them, we’d have to be our own deadly enemies. It’d be me an’ Adam against Brian an’ Wensley.” She sat back. “Everyone needs a Greasy Johnson,” she said.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 292 | Location 4073-4075  2024-03-26 23:10:17



SOMETIMES HUMAN BEINGS are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice;
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 313 | Location 4379-4381  2024-03-27 22:53:58



It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 322 | Location 4509-4509  2024-03-27 23:03:02



“Anyway, if you stopped tellin’ people it’s all sorted out after they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 335 | Location 4701-4701  2024-03-28 23:11:01



seemed to be thinking very carefully. Then he said: “I don’t see why it matters what is written. Not when it’s about people. It can always be crossed out.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 337 | Location 4740-4742  2024-03-28 23:13:42



Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s arm. “You know what happened?” he hissed excitedly. “He was left alone! He grew up human! He’s not Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate, he’s just . . . a human incarnate—
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 338 | Location 4744-4746  2024-03-28 23:14:05



Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don’t bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn’t be us. Because it’s all—all—” INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks. “Yeah. Right. Thanks.”
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 360 | Location 5017-5020  2024-03-29 23:06:55



And perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality because, while they were eating, for the first time ever, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 361 | Location 5024-5025  2024-03-29 23:07:25



“When d’you think they’ll let you out, then?” asked Pepper. “Not for years an’ years. Years an’ years an’ years. I’ll be an old man by the time they let me out,” said Adam.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 366 | Location 5108-5110  2024-03-29 23:18:01



The Them hesitated. Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants. They left.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 367 | Location 5113-5115  2024-03-29 23:17:47



For a fraction of an instant Adam saw, outlined in the smoke, a handsome, female face. A face that hadn’t been seen on Earth for over three hundred years. Agnes Nutter winked at him.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 368 | Location 5130-5132  2024-03-29 23:19:42



IF YOU WANT TO IMAGINE the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 370 | Location 5144-5145  2024-03-29 23:20:28



It’s wiser to make it look harder than it is, a lesson all jugglers learn.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 378 | Location 5244-5245  2024-03-30 23:07:58



He takes the view that mornings happen to other people.
<Good Omens>(Gaiman, Neil; Pratchett, Terry) Highlight on page 384 | Location 5315-5316  2024-03-30 23:12:15