Don Quixote | Quotes

Pero Perez dislikes stories that fall within the realm of fantasy, particularly because they don't teach any lessons or provide factual information. He has no problem, however, with informational texts, poetry, or fables, all of which he believes enrich one's intelligence. His viewpoint is one of a realist.

This quotation relates to Don Quixote's idealism. When he and Sancho Panza are forced to sleep out of doors, Don Quixote is not inconvenienced. He can make himself comfortable anywhere as long as he has his imagination. He simply feels that "roughing it" proves he has the stamina of a true knight.

After squire and master throw up on one another, Sancho Panza realizes that his master is actually a terrible knight, suffering misfortune after misfortune. Don Quixote speaks so highly of God and has so much faith in his Creator that Sancho Panza thinks it would be much safer for him to be employed by the Church.

Don Quixote sees a barber wearing a brass basin, used for shaving and bloodletting, on his head and decides it is the famed golden helmet of Mambrino. He has an uncanny ability to reframe normal life to fulfill his delusions.

Sancho Panza sees no need to put himself at risk by sticking around after a fight. His natural instincts tell him to run for safety, while Don Quixote's instincts are ready to take on any and all who wish to brawl.

Don Quixote is speaking about his plan to go crazy in order to impress Dulcinea, but this quotation also aptly describes his knighthood as a whole. He loses his mind for no good reason other than boredom.

Juan Palomeque, the second innkeeper, loves chivalric romances almost as much as Don Quixote, and he too believes that their stories are real. He has no aspirations to become a knight-errant, though, because the world has changed since the (fictional) times when knights roamed the countryside.

Many of the characters in Don Quixote ignore the lunatic knight simply because he imagines himself to be something different than what's traditionally accepted in society. He has proven himself time and again to be a logical thinker of extreme intelligence, but that doesn't matter once he places a brass basin on his head.

Don Quixote is a throwback to an earlier era when morality was valued and heroes ruled the day. Unfortunately, those heroic knight-errants of yore lived only in literature, not the real world. He spends his life wishing for a fantasy to come true.

Sancho Panza and Don Quixote are a complementary team. Sancho has crossed the line from stupidity to insanity, and his complicity in his master's schemes is what causes so much turmoil. Had Don Quixote been insane on his own, none of these adventures would have happened.

Sancho Panza is much smarter than anyone gives him credit for, which isn't appreciated until he becomes a governor.

Sancho Panza and his donkey are kindred spirits. Like Don Quixote and Rocinante, Sancho's animal is symbolic of himself.

Don Quixote's observation about the Duke and Duchess is an example of dramatic irony. He can't believe that anyone would ever bother trying to fool him and Sancho Panza, yet the Duke and Duchess don't do anything but that.

The steward and the rest of Sancho Panza's staff on Barataria Island are awed by his ability to rule wisely and justly. What started out as a prank has turned into a blessing.

The Knight of the White Moon's reference to his lady, "whoever she may be," is a joke about how women are represented in traditional chivalric romances as two-dimensional characters created solely for the hero to worship.