“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that the knights who did all these things were driven to them… but… why should you go crazy? What lady has rejected you…?
“That is exactly it,” replied Don Quixote, “that’s just how beautifully I’ve worked it all out – because for a knight errant to go crazy for good reason, how much is that worth? My idea is to become a lunatic for no reason at all…”

He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.”

Engineeer Husband has been reading Don Quixote aloud to the urchins, especially Karate Kid, in the evenings for some time now. KK says it’s a good story, but Don Quixote is being really stupid. I think they may have completed about a fourth of the book; they don’t read every night. At this rate, they ought to get to the end by the time KK gets to high school.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born on this date in 1547.