Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. H. H. Asquith
Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being. Laura Lippman
If it is asked why Socrates permits certain forms of art to be retained in the ideal state instead of consistently banishing all alike, the answer is surely obvious: these are, in the opinion of Socrates, the forms which art will take in the hands of men who understand its true nature. R. G. Collingwood
Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. Emma Donoghue