"but aren't all great quests folly?  el dorado and the fountain of youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos - we know what's out there.  it's what isn't that truly compels us.  technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags - four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon - but true quests aren't measure in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope.  there are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant - sail for asia and stumble on america - and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along."
--from pg. 284 of  beautiful ruins, by jess walter