“The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.”

“The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.”

“Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched.”

“By the Blessed Virgin ! Is it possible that your grace is so thickheaded and so short on brains that you cannot see that what I'm telling you is the absolute truth.”

“If all, or almost all, the plays that are popular now, imaginative works as well as historical ones, are known to be nonsense and without rhyme or reason, and despite this the mob hears them with pleasure and thinks of them and approves of them as good, when they are very far from being so, and the authors who compose them and the actors who perform them say they must be like this because that is just how the mob wants them, and no other way; the plays that have a design and follow the story as art demands appeal to a handful of discerning persons who understand them, while everyone else is incapable of comprehending their artistry; and since, as far as the authors and actors are concerned, it is better to earn a living with the crowd than a reputation with the elite, this is what would happen to my book after I had singed my eyebrows trying to keep the precepts I have mentioned and had become the tailor who wasn't paid.”

“All of that is true,’ responded Don Quixote, ‘but we cannot all be friars, and God brings His children to heaven by many paths: chivalry is a religion, and there are sainted knights in Glory.’Yes,’ responded Sancho, ‘but I’ve heard that there are more friars in heaven than knights errant.’That is true,’ responded Don Quixote, ‘because the number of religious is greater than the number of knights.’There are many who are errant,’ said Sancho.Many,’ responded Don Quixote, ‘but few who deserve to be called knights.”

“All I know is that while I’m asleep, I’m never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories — and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There’s only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I’ve ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there’s very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse.”