Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4)

by Stephen King

Let me be free in my mind, as free as the horses along the Drop, and don’t let her hurt me.

Back before John Farson came—the Good Man—and the bloodletting began.

And those which did still labor along—nineteen out of about two hundred—could not be stopped. They just pumped and pumped, the supplies of oil beneath them seemingly inexhaustible. A little was still used, but a very little—most simply ran back down into the wells beneath the dead pumping stations.

once she looked up and saw a meteor flash overhead—a brief and brilliant orange streak across the vault of heaven. Susan thought to wish on it, and then, with something like panic, realized she had no idea what to wish for.

That smile was dangerous, she thought—a quicksand smile if ever there was one. Easy to wander in; perhaps more difficult to wander back out.

If it’s ka, it’ll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone.

“I look forward to meeting you for the first time.”

Fools are the only folk on the earth who can absolutely count on getting what they deserve.

“Ah? Speak, companion of my bosom’s dearest tenant.”

Twenty minutes later, Rusher unloaded and rubbed down and set to forage with Buckskin and Glue Boy (Cuthbert could not even name his horse as a normal person would),

He saw the girl’s face at once; he felt her lips pressed firmly against his own again, and smelled the scent of her skin. He was instantly hot from the top of his head to the base of his spine, cold from the base of his spine to the tips of his toes. Then he thought of the way her legs had flashed as she slid from Rusher’s back (also the glimmer of the undergarments beneath her briefly raised dress), and his hot half and cold half changed places.

His rest was thin and lit by the crudely poetic dreams only adolescent boys have, dreams where sexual attraction and romantic love come together and resonate more powerfully than they ever will again.

She forced the old woman’s bright eyes and hollow cheeks out of her mind—it wasn’t hard to do at all once you set your mind to it, she discovered—and

Vain of his looks was dear old Mr. Reynolds, and why not? He’d sent his cock on its exploring way up more damp and cozy cracks than Jonas had ever seen in his life, and Jonas was twice his age.

“Young eyes see far, they say.” “Young eyes see what they’re pointed at,”

The air was redolent of those smells which would always remind him of Mejis: sea-salt, oil, and pine.

and I also have white iced tea, which I recommend most hearty, as Dave’s wife makes it and she’s a dab hand with most any potable.”

Opinion is politics, and politics is an evil which has caused many a fellow to be hung while he’s still young and pretty.”

Given that the horse-meadow they call the Drop has to be at least thirty wheels long and runs five or more to the dusty desert, how do you suppose Sheriff Avery knew we were on the part of it that belongs to Croydon’s Piano Ranch?”

On a raised stand to the right of the doors leading into the dining area, four grinning guitarists in tati jackets and sombreros were playing something that sounded like a waltz with pepper on it.

And ye’ve had to wait too long already for a dip of punch. It’s dry as dust ye must be.”

And what boy worth his salt didn’t get up to a little noise ’n wind from time to time?”

But the birth-rates were way down, so they were; the stallions had as much ram as ever in their ramrods, it seemed, but not as much powder and ball.

Roland found himself wondering if the man was really amused. In Hambry, the waters on top and the waters down below seemed to run in different directions.

“There’s three things ye can do in any situation, girl,” her father had told her once. “Ye can decide to do a thing, ye can decide not to do a thing . . . or ye can decide not to decide.” That last, her da had never quite come out and said (he hadn’t needed to) was the choice of weaklings and fools. She had promised herself she would never elect it herself . . .

Sheb McCurdy was pounding out jagged boogie, right hand flying, left hand pumping,

And at the bar, a whole line of assorted toughs, drifters, cowpunchers, drovers, drivers, carters, wheelwrights, stagies, carpenters, conmen, stockmen, boatmen, and gunmen drank beneath The Romp’s double head.

Satan’s First Law of Malignity—to wit, if the worst can happen, it usually will—they

What sort of work could they do in Hambry if it got around that the boogeymen were afraid of the children, instead of vice-versa?

Guardians of the Beam: Bear, Turtle, Fish, Eagle, Lion, Bat, and Wolf. Seven of twelve,

He had forgotten the face of his father, and walked in the moonlight, hoping to find it again.

“bareback benches”—oaken pews with no cushions for either butt or back.