Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, #6)

by Stephen King

“Anger is the most useless emotion,” Henchick intoned, “destructive to the mind and hurtful of the heart.”

You do what you need to, and I’ll do what I need to, and we’ll see who gets the goose.

“A man named Stephen King. Do you know that name?”

“All things serve the Beam.”

“Oh, I remember it. It may be the best opening line I ever wrote.” King set his beer aside, then raised his hands with the first two fingers of each held out and bent, as if making quotation marks. “‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.’ The rest might have been puff and blow, but man, that was clean.” He dropped his hands and picked up his beer.

One of the most meta things I’ve ever read.

“All things serve the Beam,” the writer said, and sighed.

So messed up to have the author appear in his own book to quote himself in the context of a book. But, it makes sense. After all, All Things Serve the Beam.

Roland looked amused. “Eddie, if one waits until the lungs are fully formed, tobacco prolongs life, not shortens it. It’s the reason why in Gilead everyone smoked but the very poorest, and even they had their shuckies, like as not. Tobacco keeps away ill-sick vapors, for one thing. Many dangerous insects, for another. Everyone knows this.”

This would explain my father-in-law.