“He grasped the knob. It was engraved with a wild rosewound around a revolver, one of those great old guns from hisfather and now lost forever.Yet it will be yours again, whispered the voice of the Towerand the voice of the roses—these voices were now one.What do you mean ?To this there was no answer, but the knob turned beneathhis hand, and perhaps that was an answer. Roland opened thedoor at the top of the Dark Tower.He saw and understood at once, the knowledge fallingupon him in a hammerblow, hot as the sun of the desert thatwas the apotheosis of all deserts. How many times had heclimbed these stairs only to find himself peeled back, curvedback, turned back? Not to the beginning (when things mighthave been changed and time's curse lifted), but to that momentin the Mohaine Desert when he had finally understood that histhoughtless, questionless quest would ultimately succeed? Howmany times had he traveled a loop like the one in the clipthat had once pinched off his navel, his own tet-ka can Gan?How many times would he travel it?"Oh, no!" he screamed. "Please, not again! Have pity! Havemercy!"The hands pulled him forward regardless. The hands of theTower knew no mercy.They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and theyknew no mercy.”

“Worlds which had trembled for a moment in their orbits now steadied, and in one of those worlds, in a desert that was the apotheosis of all deserts, a man named Roland turned over in his bedroll and slept easily once again beneath the alien constellations.”

“Step by step she lived over every instant of the time she had been with Robert... She recalled his words, his looks. How few and meager they had been for her hungry heart! ... She wondered when he would come back. He had not said he would come back. She had been with him had heard his voice and touched his hand. But some way he had seemed nearer to her off there in Mexico.”

“Once more the odious courtesies began, the first handed the knife across K. to the second, who handed it across K. back again to the first. K. now perceived clearly that he was supposed to seize the knife himself, as it traveled from hand to hand above him, and plunge it into his own breast. But he did not do so, he merely turned his head, which was still free to move, and gazed around him. He could not completely rise to the occasion, he could not relieve the officials of all their tasks; the responsibility for this last failure of his lay with him who had not left him the remnant of strength necessary for the deed.”

“Three heavy blows boxed him low in the back. He saw a splash of red hit the door and had time to think, 'We should have remembered the body armor.' Then he crumpled, still holding onto the knob with one hand as the world rushed away from him. Everything he was and everything he'd ever known diminished to a single burning-bright point of light. Then it went out. His hand slipped off the knob. He died on his knees, leaning against the door.”

“Life, he realized, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile. For the first time in months, he felt no pain at all; for the first time in years, he knew his questions had answers. As he listened to the song that Ronnie had finished, the song that Ronnie had perfected, he closed his eyes in the knowledge that his search for God's presence had been fulfilled. He finally understood that God's presence was everywhere, at all times, and was experienced by everyone at one time or another. It had been with him in the workshop as he'd labored over the window with Jonah; it had been present in the weeks he'd spent with Ronnie. It was present here and now as his daughter played their song, the last song they would ever share. In retrospect, he wondered how he could have missed something so incredibly obvious. God, he suddenly understood, was love in its purest form, and in these last months with his children, he had felt His touch as surely as he had heard the music spilling from Ronnie's hands.”