Leisurely reader: you don't need me to swear that I longed for this book, born out of my own brain, to be the handsomest child imaginable, the most elegant, the most sensible. But could I contradict the natural order of things? Like creates like. So what could my sterile, half-educated wit give birth to except the history of a sniveling child, withered, whining, its head stuffed with all kinds of thoughts no one else would even think of...
- Don Quixote, prologue
