To be heroic may mean nothing more than this then, to stand in the face of the status quo, in the face of an easy collapse into the madness of an increasingly chaotic world and represent another way.
A lack of common sense usually ends in some heroic feat, much like the soldier who dives onto the grenade so that others may live.
Sometimes, before you make any plans or resolutions, before you declare your heroic intent to persevere, you just have to cry.
Every fanatic or enemy of virtue is not at liberty to misrepresent the greatest geniuses and most heroic defenders of all that is valuable in this mortal world.
Any fool would not be brave Who takes no heed of this verse No heroic deed or action save Any man from Finndragon’s curse
But in a home where grief is fresh and patience has long worn thin, making it through another day is often heroic in itself.
Unexpected Elizabeth wasn’t falling into his arms as he’d anticipated, even after he had acted heroic and been valiantly injured. Perhaps he lost her.
Indeed, the idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne's old age, is one of the keys to our century. A touchstone of modernity itself.
I should throw you off this building minus the flying horse and see how heroic you sound on the way down.
Perhaps elements like tenacity and humility combine to form a heroic compound.
I could have murdered a man today, but by not doing so I saved his life, and thus became a hero to myself. I’m like that all the time. Being heroic, I mean.
Yet only the atrocities of the conquered are referred to as criminal acts; those of the conqueror are justified as necessary, heroic, and even worse, as the fulfillment of God's will.
Fear exists before and after, but not while the shots are being fired, because, at that moment, you see men at their very limit, capable of the most heroic of actions and the most inhumane.
I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman… did not have that opportunity. The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype.
I write fiction not for my readers and not for myself. I write fiction for the sake of those odd heroic characters that are contained therein. They are counting on me as much as I am counting on them.
Accepting that life is insane, that bad things happen to good people and that you can find the courage to be grateful for the good in every situation and still move forward is hard (even terrifying), but heroic.
Daydreaming allows you to play out scenarios where you miraculously save the day. You play out scenarios in your head that are kind of crazy, and then you personally, heroically resolve them.
We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice, heroism, war, politics and family struggle.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.
I think there are good men and women in all decades. We've grown cynical. And look at what we do to all our heroes: Churchill, FDR, Kennedy, they all had affairs. But heroic things happen every day.
I think on some level, that's a fear that exists in everybody, that if we're tested, we won't make the courageous choice. We won't make the decision that would make us heroic. We make the decision that would reveal us to be all too human.
