The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, such will be its writings.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.

There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate, nor pain which death does not terminate.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.

Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 - the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that 'Don Quixote' could do.

The absent feel and fear every ill.