The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2)

by Stephen King

At nineteen, it seems to me, one has a right to be arrogant; time has usually not begun its stealthy and rotten subtractions.

I see serious problems ahead, the gunslinger thought remotely.

Very well. I am now a man with no food, with two fewer fingers and one less toe than I was born with; I am a gunslinger with shells which may not fire; I am sickening from a monster’s bite and have no medicine; I have a day’s water if I’m lucky; I may be able to walk perhaps a dozen miles if I press myself to the last extremity. I am, in short, a man on the edge of everything.

Don’t make the mistake of putting your heart near his hand, Roland,

You did yourself ill to feel well of those to whom ill must eventually be done.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter to you,” Roland said, “but there are others involved, prisoner.” “Don’t call me that!” Eddie shouted. “I’ll call you that until you show me you can walk out of the cell you’re in!”

There are people who need people to need them. The reason you don’t understand is because you’re not one of those people. You’d use me and then toss me away like a paper bag if that’s what it came down to. God fucked you, my friend. You’re just smart enough so it would hurt you to do that, and just hard enough so you’d go ahead and do it anyway.

Fault always lies in the same place, my fine babies: with him weak enough to lay blame.

If you have given up your heart for the Tower, Roland, you have already lost. A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast.

“Odetta.” His voice was a whisper, like the onset of rain.

She turned, her face gleaming with sweat, and favored him with a smile that both weakened and strengthened him. He could have died for such a smile . . . and thought he would, if circumstances demanded.

Sleep did not drift upon him as it sometimes did but seized him with the rough hands of a lover who is awkward in her eagerness.

He was a romantic in his own harsh way . . . yet he was also realist enough to know that sometimes love actually did conquer all.

Perhaps, he thought, the time had come to end it; to just cry off. At this, everything in him rose up in protest.

When you planned rough, you allowed room for improvisation.

“Yes.” He smiled. Shooter’s Bible. It was a noble name for a book.

Control the things you can control, maggot. Let everything else take a flying fuck at you, and if you must go down, go down with your guns blazing.

The gun had been well cared for. Its aim was true. Remembering the podgy, underexercised looks of the gunslingers he had taken these weapons from, it seemed that they cared better for the weapons they wore than for the weapons they were.

What neither understood was that, when you were dealing with the gunslinger, it was usually better to leave bad enough alone.

Two brown hands closed over his one and took the knife. Roland looked around. “I’ll do it,” Susannah said. “Have you ever?” “No, but you’ll tell me how.” “All right.”

“Everything there is,” the gunslinger said calmly. “We are going to go, Eddie. We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end we will stand.”