Hero Quotes - Page 128

I tried heroin. I shot up in high school, but I just thought it was so dreary: puking and nodding.

But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.

The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught.

What people adore about superhero movies is the signal quality of the Christopher Nolan films - their complete lack of irony when it comes to the portrayal of heroism and the need for heroes to confront evil.

Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse.

Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had.

Heroes understand the vast moral gulf between those who target the innocent and those who target those who target the innocent.

An act of heroism, of extraordinary courage, the grandeur of it, won't easily inspire us to act in imitation, but it can inspire us to emulate its author. For that, we should learn what we can of the whole experience of the subject, the hero's life, as it was before and after, and believe that trying to emulate the character it reveals is one tried way to prepare for the tests that might await us and gain hope that our courage will not be wanting in the moment.

That's the choice they allow you - now the outlet is being a pop star, which is really what I'm saying on the album in 'Working class hero'. As I told Rolling Stone, it's the same people who have the power, the class system didn't change one little bit.

It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison - it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.

I have a lot of heroes. I don't think people give enough of a tribute to their mentors. They try to act like they're spontaneous generations - they are faking liars.

Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.

When you're a young person, you are biologically driven to believe you are immortal, and that's why you engage in all kinds of risky behavior you stop once you feel death's cruel breath on your neck. I think that as a straight white man in particular, I was tempted to believe that I was immortal and eternal because, after all, in this culture, straight white dudes are the heroes of every story that you see or read about with very rare exception. So how could the story go on without the hero, you know?

He is obviously an American hero. John McCain is a vanishing breed. He is an iconoclast, he is in his own mind and often in reality a maverick. And I think, you know, you having spent the time that you spent in the Senate know that this is true.

In my opinion, actual heroism, like actual love, is a messy, painful, vulnerable business—and I wanted to try to reflect that.

Part of my strength as an actor comes from what I've learned all these years: when you play a villain, you try to get the light touches; when you play a hero, you try to get in some of the warts.

We are all proud of is World War II where we went in, we were decisive, we came to the conclusion that freedom prevailed, and we were heroes.

When I was growing up I had three wishes. I wanted to be a Lindbergh-type hero, learn Chinese, and become a member of The Algonquin Round Table.

Actually, my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full of them that I cherish but am afraid to look at.

Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.

I've gone through various periods with superheroes. They work in the right hands, but they don't work in other hands. It's tricky. But any movie is tricky. It's impossible to say, 'This is what you do in any situation.

Most boys' first hero is their father. That was definitely true of my dad. He was a proud Irish American and he taught me a lot about ethics and responsibility. He also introduced me to a lot of wonderful folk music.

Your child, your friend your neighbor, somebody looks up and says "You know what? I am going to move my life towards that type of goodness, doing that type of goodness, being that type of goodness and kindness. I think that is how someone becomes a hero.

I don't have individuals that are heroes per say but I will suggest that teachers are heroes for me, our firefighters are heroes for me, our police departments are heroes for me and our leaders are heroes for me.

I don't look at myself as a hero, I look at myself as somebody who has taken life with a lot of fun and I take it very seriously, I know it s a very short journey and so I want to grow, I want to develop, I want to be as good as I can be so I can share what all my talents and gifts allow me to share with other individuals to make their lives better.