In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.

And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.

A dimwit thinks nothing is funny unless it's mean.

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.

You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down.

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting.