Words from the achiever
“Don Quixote ties in so much to the optimistic part of me, this idea of tilting at windmills, whether they’re real or not. The imagination of them, what fueled that man, that love, that idyllic sort of quest. That can be life sometimes. We don’t always achieve what we end up hoping for. We can work very, very hard at things and come up short. But I take comfort from having dreamt the dream. From having taken the steps, the quest, to undergo the quest of trying to reach them. If at the end you don’t, you’ve had the journey, and I always think the journeys are valuable. They give you lessons, they give you memories. They help you meet people, they help you have an adventure in life. And so for me, that probably, when I’ve read that book, I understood that I was okay. Being optimistic wasn’t a bad thing. It was actually a very good thing.”
About the book
Often cited as the first great European novel, Don Quixote was first published in 1605. A product of Spain’s Golden Age, it has become a cornerstone of world literature. This sprawling comedic work recounts the adventures of an elderly country gentleman. His imagination over-stimulated by reading romances of chivalry, he imagines himself to be a knight of old, and sets out to right the wrongs of the world, accompanied by his more realistic friend, Sancho Panza.