Life as it is

* Why are you poets so fascinated by madmen?

- We have much in common.

* You both turn your backs on life.

- We both select from life.

* A man has to come to terms with life as it it.

- Life as it is. I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery ... cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns, the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words ... only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?".
I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they have ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!

Man of La Mancha (1972)