What Did I Want?

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom.

I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!"

I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake.

I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and to eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid.

I wanted the world to be the way they had promised me it was going to be, instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

- Robert Heinlein, "Glory Road"