...it was more like bleeding than crying.

Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.

You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?

Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.

Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

I hope you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do--make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know.