Neil Gaiman

"But you can't just leave it at that!" said Anathema, pushing forward. "Think of all things you could do! Good things!"

"Like what?" said Adam suspiciously.

"Well ... you could bring all the whales back, to start with."

He put his head on one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them, would it?"

She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes.

"An' if people do start killing 'em, what would you have me do about 'em?" said Adam. "No. I reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Once I start messing around like that, there'd be no stoppin' it. Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale."

"God does not play games with His loyal servants," said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.

"Whooo-eee," said Crowley. "Where have you been?"

"I don't see what's so t'riffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people," said Adam severely. "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.

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.

"That's not Beelzebub!" he shouted, above the noise of the wind. "That's Him. His Father! This isn't Armageddon, this is personal."

"I'd just like to say," he said, "if we don't get out of this, that . . . I'll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you."

"That's right," said Crowley bitterly. "Make my day."

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.

There would be other summers, but there would never be one like this. Ever again.

Better make the most of it, then.

You can't be certain that what's happening right now isn't exactly right, from an ineffable point of view.

Nothin' wrong with witchfinding. I'd like to be a witchfinder. It's just, well you've got to take it in turns. Today we'll go out witchfinding, an' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find US...

There never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

"We seem to have survived," he said. "Just imagine how terrible it might have been if we'd been at all competent."