Important Quotations Explained
1. [F]or
what I want of Dulcinea del Toboso she is as good as the greatest
princess in the land. For not all those poets who praise ladies
under names which they choose so freely, really have such mistresses.
. . .I am quite satisfied. . . to imagine and believe that the good
Aldonza Lorenzo is so lovely and virtuous. . . .
2. I
shall never be fool enough to turn knight errant. For I see quite
well that it's not the fashion now to do as they did in the olden
days when they say those famous knights roamed the world.
3. Now
that I've to be sitting on a bare board, does your worship want
me to flay my bum?
4. Great
hearts, my dear master, should be patient in misfortune as well
as joyful in prosperity. And this I judge from myself. For if I
was merry when I was Governor now that I'm a squire on foot I'm
not sad, for I've heard tell that Fortune, as they call her, is
a drunken and capricious woman and, worse still, blind; and so she
doesn't see what she's doing, and doesn't know whom she is casting
down or raising up.
5. For
me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of
action, mine of writing.
