Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, #5)

by Stephen King

Andy’s smile probably could not become troubled—he was a robot, after all, the last one in Calla Bryn Sturgis or for miles and wheels around—but to Tian it seemed to grow troubled, just the same. The robot looked like a young child’s stick-figure of an adult, impossibly tall and impossibly thin. His legs and arms were silvery. His head was a stainless-steel barrel with electric eyes. His body, no more than a cylinder, was gold. Stamped in the middle—what would have been a man’s chest—was this legend:

“No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves, don’t we?”

Oy sniffed a fire hydrant. Eddie and Jake paused to let the little guy lift his leg and add his own notice to what was undoubtedly an already crowded bulletin board.

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Once upon a time, back in the sixties (before the world moved on), there had been a woman named Odetta Holmes, a pleasant and really quite socially conscious young woman who was wealthy, good-looking, and perfectly willing to look out for the other guy (or gal). Without even realizing it, this woman shared her body with a far less pleasant creature named Detta Walker. Detta did not give a tin shit for the other guy (or gal).

“If,” Roland said. “An old teacher of mine used to call it the only word a thousand letters long.”

We spread the time as we can, but in the end the world takes it all back.”

It’s a wholly illogical but nonetheless powerful belief that things will change for the better in a new place; that the urge to self-destruct will magically disappear.

The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we’re still alive, after all.

“Wandering’s the most addictive drug there is, I think, and every hidden road leads on to a dozen more.”

“the broken leg usually hides in the last caper, but have on, if ye must.”

“You believe Susannah should be told. I, on the other hand, don’t know what to do—in this matter I’ve lost my compass. When one knows and one does not, the one who does not must bow his head and the one who does must take responsibility. Do you understand me, Jake?” “Yes,” Jake whispered, and touched his curled hand to his brow.

“Your Man Jesus seems to me a bit of a son of a bitch when it comes to women,” Roland said. “Was He ever married?” The corners of Callahan’s mouth quirked. “No,” he said, “but His girlfriend was a whore.” “Well,” Roland said, “that’s a start.”

In standard American English, the word with the most gradations of meaning is probably run. The Random House unabridged dictionary offers one hundred and seventy-eight options, beginning with “to go quickly by moving the legs more rapidly than at a walk” and ending with “melted or liquefied.”

“My Da’ and Cuthbert’s Da’ used to have a rule between em: first the smiles, then the lies. Last comes gunfire.”