Friends are relatives you make for yourself.

—Eustache Deschamps

 

 

Everything works out in the end.

If it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.

—Anonymous

 

 

Belief’s a funny old thing.

When the old maps said “Here there be dragons,” for a lot of people that was a serious concern and as good a reason as any to stay right where you were, safe in your own little town or hamlet.

Because you knew dragons were waiting for you if you were foolish enough to fare into the unknown—those mysterious regions that lie on the edges of maps, beyond the borders of what is known, or at least what the cartographers know.

And if you did confront a dragon, it would fry you to a crisp with one fiery breath. Unless you were someone like St. George, I suppose, who, by all accounts, actively went out looking for them.

On the other hand, if you didn’t believe in those dragons, you probably wouldn’t find them if you went wandering off into their territory. For you, they wouldn’t be there at all.

That is, unless someone convinced you otherwise…