I looked up my name, as one is wont to do as a child, and saw next to “Don,” an entry which read “Don Quixote, see Quixote, Don.” Wow! There was something with my name in it and it had a Q and an X! I, of course, turned to the Qs, read the entry, not only for “Quixote, Don” but also for “quixotic” and “quixotism” and thought, “I like the idea of being quixotic.”
I then, read the bowdlerized children's version of Don Quixote that they had in the children's section and returned to the book many times over the years that followed.
One day in high school, a friend who had graduated came by to visit the band teacher and had a book in his hand that he was reading, Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. He described it as “Don Quixote is a Catholic priest and Sancho Panza is the communist ex-mayor of El Toboso.” I went to the library the next day and checked out their copy of the book and loved it. I proceeded to read every book that the library had by Graham Greene and became imbued with his world view (it probably helped that I was inclined in that direction already) and it gradually led to my becoming Catholic 7 years later. My love of Greene also influenced me in becoming a writer (something to which I was already inclined) and he and J. D. Salinger are the two most obvious influences in my writing to this day.