heroes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
f33e180	Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.	heroes inspirational	Peter S. Beagle
bb4e988	"Hazel squinted. "How far?" "Just over the river and through the woods." Percy raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? To Grandmother's house we go?" Frank cleared his throat. "Yeah, anyway."	heroes neptune zhang olympus olympians son jackson percy hazel	Rick Riordan
8190244	"Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. "We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a famous mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!" "Oh, sure," Leo said. "Like...um, the Little Mermaid?" Aphros frowned. "Who? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill!" "Oh. "Leo had no idea who any of those people were. "You trained Bill? Impressive."	heroes mermaids hero-training the-little-mermaid heroes-of-olympus percy-jackson-and-the-olympians the-mark-of-athena leo-valdez	Rick Riordan
7c45f29	Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both.	heroes loras-tyrell jaime-lannister villains knights legend memory stories	George R.R. Martin
71cda0d	Dead people can be our heroes because they cant disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.	heroes death life the-traitor tobias-eaton fourtris divergent four tris-prior veronica-roth	Veronica Roth
a75c081	But I am the real Strider, fortunately. I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.	heroes gallantry lord-of-the-rings oath	J.R.R. Tolkien
c90f516	To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.	heroes heroic stand-out heroism clever courage living death motivational success life inspirational stand courageous winning definition living-life-to-the-fullest soldier warrior hero crazy	Criss Jami
87c29cd	The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.	heroes feminism women religion ayaan-hirsi-ali azar-nafisi heroines taliban-treatment-of-women women-in-afghanistan women-in-iraq women-s-rights-in-iran women-s-rights-movement-in-iran iran women-and-religion women-in-iran women-in-islam role-models theocracy iraq islam	Christopher Hitchens
9c6a8eb	All heroes are shadows of Christ	heroes	John Piper
b3f8133	"You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you."	heroes	Peter S. Beagle
9ce3504	"Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes."	heroes christianity spirituality philosophy culture-critique jesus-shock culture theology	Peter Kreeft
6c5dda1	"Thats what happens to Snow in Texas, lady. It freaking MELTS!!" Leo Valdez- The Lost Hero"	earth heroes heo melts of-olympus valdez freak texas leo jackson percy rick-riordan lady hilarious lost snow	Rick Riordan
db15e40	"I took in a deep breath, and smoke twisted around my head as I let it slip through my teeth. "Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little kid?" The look again. "I would have no idea." "Doctor Who. British sci-fi show." "I am familiar with it. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt--" "No," I said. "The new show's great, but I grew up on the old one. The low-budget, rubber monster show with Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I watched it on PBS all the time as a kid." I looked out at the dark ruins of Hollywood, at the stumbling shadows dotting the streets as far as you could see. The only other living person within half a mile was standing behind me, her eyes boring into my head. "The Doctor didn't have super-powers or weapons or anything like that. He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing. To help people, no matter what. That struck me when I was a kid. The idea that no matter how cold and callous and heartless the world seemed, there was somebody out there who just wanted to make life better. Not better for worlds or countries in some vague way. Just better for people trying to live their lives, even if they didn't know about him." I turned back to her and tapped my chest. "That's what this suit's always been about. Not scaring people like you or Gorgon do. Not some sort of pseudo-sexual roleplay or repressed emotions. I wear this thing, all these bright colors, because I want people to know someone's trying to make their lives better. I want to give them hope." --	heroes	Peter Clines
78401fc	Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.	heroes famous-beginnings coincidence clocks birth midnight	Charles Dickens
91cd67b	Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.	heroes cowards fighting	Margaret Mitchell
dda68f1	Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.	heroes humanity love robert-cormier psychology sin	Robert Cormier
6f7495d	History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.	heroes history villain uncertainty hero villains	Ian Fleming
ba0b1c2	Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.	heroes effort name	Chuck Palahniuk
7fcae9a	He was dirty, his hair unkempt, his clothes stained with blood. Heroes in stories somehow managed to rescue maidens while looking like court dandies. Next time he went adventuring he'd remember to bring a comb.	heroes hero	J.V. Jones
295ab10	That is why embittered people find heroes and madmen a perennial source of fascination, for they have no fear of life or death. Both heroes and madmen are indifferent to danger and will forge ahead regardless of what other people say.	heroes madmen	Paulo Coelho
1a84b71	I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.	heroes heroism	Mercedes Lackey
acb2b8e	The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?	heroes steward protecting stewardship	J.R.R. Tolkien
40c8506	It takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.	madness heroes strength innocence memory	James Baldwin
49ac5ff	"And you came back to Lyrian?" Galloran said in disbelief. "Believe it or not, I came through the same hippopotamus that brought me here the first time. Jumped into the tank on purpose. I wanted to keep others from wasting their time pursuing the Word. And I couldn't ditch Rachel." Galloran smiled. "Truly, you are possessed by that species of madness that begets heroism."	rebellion heroes heroism seeds brandon mull	Brandon Mull
de2bd14	We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.	heroes reading books imagination dreams	Peter S. Beagle
76ede5e	He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people who'd gone before those heroes, about whether they'd been heroic too or whether they'd been at each other's throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they weren't going to make it, weren't going to beat those long odds -- that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed.	heroes quests failure	Holly Black
8e7e6f1	I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.	heroes dreams old-man book hero	Rodman Philbrick
a395b0a	Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.	heroes espionage spy	John le Carré
6abd03d	Heroes, well, they don't live so long. But they're muy suave, and we all admire them.	heroes heroism young-adult	Nancy Farmer
c0954de	Well, the ancients might not have been very heroic. Most of them were probably like Mother, crouched somewhere trying to work out how to make fake jawbone jewelry that would look like the real thing.	heroes history people	Barbara Kingsolver
f22b832	"There's no happy ending ... Nevertheless, we might well say that is exactly Harriet Beecher Stowe's point. In 1852 slavery had not been abolished. Slaves were still on the plantations and many of them were in the hands of people like Legree. Her book was written to shame the collective conscience of America into action against an atrocity which was still continuing. So a happy ending would have been, frankly, a lie and a betrayal. ...	heroes thomas-a-shippey uncle-tom-s-cabin	Thomas A. Shippey
0c3789a	"Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden," Jacques said. And then: "I wonder why." ... Everyone, after all, goes the same dark road--and the road has a trick of being most dark, most treacherous, when it seems most bright--and it's true that nobody stays in the garden of Eden. ... Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another type of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of the pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare."	madness pain heroes strength life-choices innocence-lost garden-of-eden innocence	James Baldwin
e81c60a	war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the looting and raping and killing.	war heroes kabul justice	Khaled Hosseini
b2e0240	Ah, the world was ever so. How sad are heroes when their tasks are done...	fate heroes	Michael Moorcock
5077a1a	"He is a true hero," she said, "a dragonslayer, a giantkiller, a rescuer of maidens, a solver of impossible riddles. He may be the greatest hero of all, because he's a good man as well. They aren't always." --	heroes	Peter S. Beagle
d13739d	The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying.	heroes illiad patroclus sidekicks	Thomas C. Foster
5c1b7ae	They blew out a breath and did the thing all heroes must do--they took that terrifying first step.	heroes heroism	Chloe Neill
e77af03	There is heroism to be found in great battles, it is true; warriors with stable knees who fight and know that they will die for an idea or for the safety of loved ones back home. But there are also people who spend their entire adulthood at a soulless job they despise to make sure their children have something to eat that night so that one day those kids may lead better, more fulfilling lives than their parents. The warrior and the worker both make sacrifices. Who, then, is more heroic? Can any of us judge? I don't think I'm qualified. I'll let history decide. But I do not think we should leave it all up to warriors and rulers to speak to the future.	heroes inspirational	Kevin Hearne
0264512	After September 11th, I never much liked the trend of everyone and his brother wearing the hats and jackets of the NYPD and FDNY. Only the people who do the job should get to wear the hat. Would you wear someone else's Medal of Honor? Yes, it's a tribute, and sincere tribute is always appropriate for these brave people. But wearing their symbols is also rubbing off a piece of heroism that isn't yours.	heroes heroism america war-on-terror patriotism	Bill Maher
37f45ec	He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy . . . who had left upon every field of victory in Europe drops of that same blood which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown grey before his time in discipline and in command, who had lived with his sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade blackened by powder, his forehead wrinkled by the cap, in the barracks, in the camp, in the bivouac, in the ambulance, and who after twenty years had returned from the great wars with his cheek scarred, his face smiling, simple, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done everything for France and nothing against her.	war heroes les-misérables father-and-son hero	Victor Hugo
3e67f29	By the time I wrote this book I needed to look at heroics from outside and underneath, from the point of view of the people who are not included. The ones who can't do magic. The ones who don't have shining staffs or swords. Women, kids, the poor, the old, the powerless. Unheroes, ordinary people--my people. I didn't want to change Earthsea, but I needed to see what Earthsea looked like to us.	heroes feminism heroism women heroics elderly	Ursula K. Le Guin
44c34d0	"Everyone," Caitlin said, cradling her wine glass, "is the hero of his own story. That goes double for fanatics. Some of the greatest horrors in history were perpetrated by people who insisted, all the way to damnation's door, that they fought on the side of the angels."	heroes history good	Craig Schaefer
6f63b6c	[W]hen one's young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong, but as one gets older it becomes more difficult. At school it's easy to pick out one's own villains and heroes and one grows up wanting to be a hero and kill the villains.	heroes good youth villains	Ian Fleming
8d257a1	In fairy tales, the heroes are punished when they run away from a task. The heroes, not their younger brothers...	heroes family fairytales punishment siblings hero ya	Cornelia Funke
cff8628	Danny could see it in their faces when they shook Steve's hand--they'd have preferred him dead. Death allowed for the illusion of heroism. The maimed turned that illusion into an uncomfortable odor.	heroes image	Dennis Lehane
db2464b	Literary works are not democracies. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We may, but the country of Novels, Etc., doesn't. In that faraway place, no character is created equal. One or two of them get all the breaks; the rest exist to get them to the finish line.	literature equality heroes sidekicks	Thomas C. Foster
fc01d13	You will not say how you are haunted by the faces of the men you killed, how in their last gasp of life they sought your pity and you had none. You will not speak of the boys who died screaming for their mothers while you twisted a blade in their guts and snarled your scorn into their ears. You will not confess that you wake in the night, covered in sweat, heart hammering, shrinking from the memories. You will not talk of that, because that is the horror, and the horror is held in the heart's hoard, a secret, and to admit it is to admit fear, and we are warriors. We do not fear. We strut. We go to battle like heroes. We stink of shit.	heroes fear secret shit warriors horror	Bernard Cornwell
1870520	Despite it all, there were heroes who rose above their circumstances. Those who reached out to people of another race with compassion and even love.	understanding heroes history inspiration love southwest ethnicity race	Noel Marie Fletcher
0d98343	If you're a hero you can be an idiot, behave badly, ruin your personal life, have any number of mistresses and talk about yourself all the time, and nobody minds. Heroes are immune. They have wide shoulders and plenty of hair and wherever they go a crowd gathers. Mostly they enjoy the company of other men, although attractive women are part of their reward.	heroes womanizing	Jeanette Winterson
2237b63	Heroes, however, have a habit of ending up dead or bankrupt, and, as you know better than anyone, I have much to lose. At my age and in my profession, prudence is more than just a virtue, it's an instinct.	heroes	Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.

Peter S. Beagle

bb4e988

"Hazel squinted. "How far?" "Just over the river and through the woods." Percy raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? To Grandmother's house we go?" Frank cleared his throat. "Yeah, anyway."

heroes neptune zhang olympus olympians son jackson percy hazel

Rick Riordan

8190244

"Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. "We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a famous mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!" "Oh, sure," Leo said. "Like...um, the Little Mermaid?" Aphros frowned. "Who? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill!" "Oh. "Leo had no idea who any of those people were. "You trained Bill? Impressive."

heroes mermaids hero-training the-little-mermaid heroes-of-olympus percy-jackson-and-the-olympians the-mark-of-athena leo-valdez

Rick Riordan

7c45f29

Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both.

heroes loras-tyrell jaime-lannister villains knights legend memory stories

George R.R. Martin

71cda0d

Dead people can be our heroes because they cant disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.

heroes death life the-traitor tobias-eaton fourtris divergent four tris-prior veronica-roth

Veronica Roth

a75c081

But I am the real Strider, fortunately. I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.

heroes gallantry lord-of-the-rings oath

J.R.R. Tolkien

c90f516

To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.

heroes heroic stand-out heroism clever courage living death motivational success life inspirational stand courageous winning definition living-life-to-the-fullest soldier warrior hero crazy

Criss Jami

87c29cd

The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.

heroes feminism women religion ayaan-hirsi-ali azar-nafisi heroines taliban-treatment-of-women women-in-afghanistan women-in-iraq women-s-rights-in-iran women-s-rights-movement-in-iran iran women-and-religion women-in-iran women-in-islam role-models theocracy iraq islam

Christopher Hitchens

9c6a8eb

All heroes are shadows of Christ

heroes

John Piper

b3f8133

"You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you."

heroes

Peter S. Beagle

9ce3504

"Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes."

heroes christianity spirituality philosophy culture-critique jesus-shock culture theology

Peter Kreeft

6c5dda1

"Thats what happens to Snow in Texas, lady. It freaking MELTS!!" Leo Valdez- The Lost Hero"

earth heroes heo melts of-olympus valdez freak texas leo jackson percy rick-riordan lady hilarious lost snow

Rick Riordan

db15e40

"I took in a deep breath, and smoke twisted around my head as I let it slip through my teeth. "Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little kid?" The look again. "I would have no idea." "Doctor Who. British sci-fi show." "I am familiar with it. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt--" "No," I said. "The new show's great, but I grew up on the old one. The low-budget, rubber monster show with Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I watched it on PBS all the time as a kid." I looked out at the dark ruins of Hollywood, at the stumbling shadows dotting the streets as far as you could see. The only other living person within half a mile was standing behind me, her eyes boring into my head. "The Doctor didn't have super-powers or weapons or anything like that. He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing. To help people, no matter what. That struck me when I was a kid. The idea that no matter how cold and callous and heartless the world seemed, there was somebody out there who just wanted to make life better. Not better for worlds or countries in some vague way. Just better for people trying to live their lives, even if they didn't know about him." I turned back to her and tapped my chest. "That's what this suit's always been about. Not scaring people like you or Gorgon do. Not some sort of pseudo-sexual roleplay or repressed emotions. I wear this thing, all these bright colors, because I want people to know someone's trying to make their lives better. I want to give them hope." --

heroes

Peter Clines

78401fc

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

heroes famous-beginnings coincidence clocks birth midnight

Charles Dickens

91cd67b

Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.

heroes cowards fighting

Margaret Mitchell

dda68f1

Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.

heroes humanity love robert-cormier psychology sin

Robert Cormier

6f7495d

History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

heroes history villain uncertainty hero villains

Ian Fleming

ba0b1c2

Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.

heroes effort name

Chuck Palahniuk

7fcae9a

He was dirty, his hair unkempt, his clothes stained with blood. Heroes in stories somehow managed to rescue maidens while looking like court dandies. Next time he went adventuring he'd remember to bring a comb.

heroes hero

J.V. Jones

295ab10

That is why embittered people find heroes and madmen a perennial source of fascination, for they have no fear of life or death. Both heroes and madmen are indifferent to danger and will forge ahead regardless of what other people say.

heroes madmen

Paulo Coelho

1a84b71

I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.

heroes heroism

Mercedes Lackey

acb2b8e

The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?

heroes steward protecting stewardship

J.R.R. Tolkien

40c8506

It takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.

madness heroes strength innocence memory

James Baldwin

49ac5ff

"And you came back to Lyrian?" Galloran said in disbelief. "Believe it or not, I came through the same hippopotamus that brought me here the first time. Jumped into the tank on purpose. I wanted to keep others from wasting their time pursuing the Word. And I couldn't ditch Rachel." Galloran smiled. "Truly, you are possessed by that species of madness that begets heroism."

rebellion heroes heroism seeds brandon mull

Brandon Mull

de2bd14

We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.

heroes reading books imagination dreams

Peter S. Beagle

76ede5e

He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people who'd gone before those heroes, about whether they'd been heroic too or whether they'd been at each other's throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they weren't going to make it, weren't going to beat those long odds -- that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed.

heroes quests failure

Holly Black

8e7e6f1

I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.

heroes dreams old-man book hero

Rodman Philbrick

a395b0a

Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.

heroes espionage spy

John le Carré

6abd03d

Heroes, well, they don't live so long. But they're muy suave, and we all admire them.

heroes heroism young-adult

Nancy Farmer

c0954de

Well, the ancients might not have been very heroic. Most of them were probably like Mother, crouched somewhere trying to work out how to make fake jawbone jewelry that would look like the real thing.

heroes history people

Barbara Kingsolver

f22b832

"There's no happy ending ... Nevertheless, we might well say that is exactly Harriet Beecher Stowe's point. In 1852 slavery had not been abolished. Slaves were still on the plantations and many of them were in the hands of people like Legree. Her book was written to shame the collective conscience of America into action against an atrocity which was still continuing. So a happy ending would have been, frankly, a lie and a betrayal. ...

heroes thomas-a-shippey uncle-tom-s-cabin

Thomas A. Shippey

0c3789a

"Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden," Jacques said. And then: "I wonder why." ... Everyone, after all, goes the same dark road--and the road has a trick of being most dark, most treacherous, when it seems most bright--and it's true that nobody stays in the garden of Eden. ... Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another type of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of the pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare."

madness pain heroes strength life-choices innocence-lost garden-of-eden innocence

James Baldwin

e81c60a

war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the looting and raping and killing.

war heroes kabul justice

Khaled Hosseini

b2e0240

Ah, the world was ever so. How sad are heroes when their tasks are done...

fate heroes

Michael Moorcock

5077a1a

"He is a true hero," she said, "a dragonslayer, a giantkiller, a rescuer of maidens, a solver of impossible riddles. He may be the greatest hero of all, because he's a good man as well. They aren't always." --

heroes

Peter S. Beagle

d13739d

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying.

heroes illiad patroclus sidekicks

Thomas C. Foster

5c1b7ae

They blew out a breath and did the thing all heroes must do--they took that terrifying first step.

heroes heroism

Chloe Neill

e77af03

There is heroism to be found in great battles, it is true; warriors with stable knees who fight and know that they will die for an idea or for the safety of loved ones back home. But there are also people who spend their entire adulthood at a soulless job they despise to make sure their children have something to eat that night so that one day those kids may lead better, more fulfilling lives than their parents. The warrior and the worker both make sacrifices. Who, then, is more heroic? Can any of us judge? I don't think I'm qualified. I'll let history decide. But I do not think we should leave it all up to warriors and rulers to speak to the future.

heroes inspirational

Kevin Hearne

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After September 11th, I never much liked the trend of everyone and his brother wearing the hats and jackets of the NYPD and FDNY. Only the people who do the job should get to wear the hat. Would you wear someone else's Medal of Honor? Yes, it's a tribute, and sincere tribute is always appropriate for these brave people. But wearing their symbols is also rubbing off a piece of heroism that isn't yours.

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Bill Maher

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He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy . . . who had left upon every field of victory in Europe drops of that same blood which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown grey before his time in discipline and in command, who had lived with his sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade blackened by powder, his forehead wrinkled by the cap, in the barracks, in the camp, in the bivouac, in the ambulance, and who after twenty years had returned from the great wars with his cheek scarred, his face smiling, simple, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done everything for France and nothing against her.

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Victor Hugo

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By the time I wrote this book I needed to look at heroics from outside and underneath, from the point of view of the people who are not included. The ones who can't do magic. The ones who don't have shining staffs or swords. Women, kids, the poor, the old, the powerless. Unheroes, ordinary people--my people. I didn't want to change Earthsea, but I needed to see what Earthsea looked like to us.

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Ursula K. Le Guin

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"Everyone," Caitlin said, cradling her wine glass, "is the hero of his own story. That goes double for fanatics. Some of the greatest horrors in history were perpetrated by people who insisted, all the way to damnation's door, that they fought on the side of the angels."

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Craig Schaefer

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[W]hen one's young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong, but as one gets older it becomes more difficult. At school it's easy to pick out one's own villains and heroes and one grows up wanting to be a hero and kill the villains.

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Ian Fleming

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In fairy tales, the heroes are punished when they run away from a task. The heroes, not their younger brothers...

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Cornelia Funke

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Danny could see it in their faces when they shook Steve's hand--they'd have preferred him dead. Death allowed for the illusion of heroism. The maimed turned that illusion into an uncomfortable odor.

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Dennis Lehane

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Literary works are not democracies. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We may, but the country of Novels, Etc., doesn't. In that faraway place, no character is created equal. One or two of them get all the breaks; the rest exist to get them to the finish line.

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Thomas C. Foster

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You will not say how you are haunted by the faces of the men you killed, how in their last gasp of life they sought your pity and you had none. You will not speak of the boys who died screaming for their mothers while you twisted a blade in their guts and snarled your scorn into their ears. You will not confess that you wake in the night, covered in sweat, heart hammering, shrinking from the memories. You will not talk of that, because that is the horror, and the horror is held in the heart's hoard, a secret, and to admit it is to admit fear, and we are warriors. We do not fear. We strut. We go to battle like heroes. We stink of shit.

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Bernard Cornwell

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Despite it all, there were heroes who rose above their circumstances. Those who reached out to people of another race with compassion and even love.

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Noel Marie Fletcher

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If you're a hero you can be an idiot, behave badly, ruin your personal life, have any number of mistresses and talk about yourself all the time, and nobody minds. Heroes are immune. They have wide shoulders and plenty of hair and wherever they go a crowd gathers. Mostly they enjoy the company of other men, although attractive women are part of their reward.

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Jeanette Winterson

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Heroes, however, have a habit of ending up dead or bankrupt, and, as you know better than anyone, I have much to lose. At my age and in my profession, prudence is more than just a virtue, it's an instinct.

heroes

Arturo Pérez-Reverte