“Looking back on it, Sloat wasn't sure how he had tolerated Phil Sawyer for as long as he had. His partner had never played to win, not seriously; he had been encumbered by sentimental notions of loyalty and honor, corrupted by the stuff you told kids to get them halfway civilized before you finally tore the blindfold off their eyes.”

“Jamie DeCurry had once proclaimed that Roland could shoot blindfolded, because he had eyes in his fingers.”

“Never before in his life had he understood how subjective, how plastic, time really is.”

“It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.”

“Then he closed his eyes and put his hands together again before his face, finger to finger. Johnny was struck by the kid's lack of pretension. There was a simplicity about the gesture that had been honed by use into beauty.”

“He looked back at them, and Eddie saw something he had never expected to see in his life—not even if that life stretched over a thousand years. Roland of Gilead was weeping.”

“He could not even kid himself that everything had not been up front, because it had been. And he hadn’t even done it alone. There were currently ninety-five other fools in this parade.”