Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.
Hope is an essential thread in the fabric of all fantasies, an Ariadne's thread to guide us out of the labyrinth ... Human beings have always needed hope, and surely now more than ever.
Is there worse evil than that which goes in the mask of good?
...righteousness [is] always more believable when combined with dreariness.
For Wayfarers still journeying, for Wanderers at rest.
The muse in charge of fantasy wears good, sensible shoes. No foam-born Aphrodite, she vaguely resembles my old piano teacher, who was keen on metronomes.