I would ask: Given the nature of free-market capitalism – where the rule is to rise to the top at all costs – is it possible to have a financial industry hero? And by the way, this is not a pop-culture trend we’re talking about. There aren’t many financial heroes in literature, theater or cinema.
It’s hard to describe how bloody awful music was, how desperately bad it was, how our 1960s heroes had become boring and useless. Not only were they bad – they were badly dressed.
My heroes are guys like Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon. These are amazing actors with amazing careers that every actor should aspire to. I’m not saying I’m going to get anywhere close. It’s not going to be an easy feat. I’m just in awe of their careers.
At the heart of every successful romance novel lies the evolution of its characters. Through love, heroes and heroines grow not only into a perfect match, but into stronger, better, more admirable people.
It was just the thrill of a lifetime. Brando and Hackman were two of my heroes.
My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda, they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson, who wasn’t too cool. He was a nice, homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked.
To a degree, the Greek and Roman mythological heroes are just the first superheroes. They appeal to children for much the same reason. These gods and heroes may have powers, but they get angry and they do the wrong thing. They are human too.
The only places where I have found that simple human dignity, that respect for the other man, and the gracious feel of tolerance and humanity have not been either among the heroes of the class-struggle or the ‘thinking men’ but among my simple ‘backward’ people.
You may never need them, but if you do, they’ll be there. It’s that bedrock promise of protection that makes our public safety officials the unsung heroes that they are.
Our associates are the heroes of our company’s story. They work hard to make a difference in the lives of millions of customers.
King Arthur was one of my heroes because he was such a marvelous, heroic, courageous, and magnificent person that I had to admire him even though I knew perfectly well that I could never be in any way like that.
I think women are very ambidextrous. We don’t think twice about reading a book or a movie starring guys. But for guys, it’s, like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a woman thing.’ So with my son, I very carefully portion out the female heroes and characters to make sure he’s getting an equal amount.
Some of my heroes are John Bonham, Keith Moon, Neil Peart, Ringo Starr, Terry Bozzio, Bill Bruford… The list goes on and on and on.
It’s an interesting thing to play the heroes of our society, like cops and firefighters. They’re the basic heroes that, as little boys and little girls, you look up to as the first heroes of your small, specific community.
I get the same feeling walking into the Opry House as I do when I see one of my heroes.
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
I’m my own hero on the sets; why should I work with other heroes? The Khans did not want to work with me when I started. Why should I work with them now?
But if one could go back in time, I’d love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who’s one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in ‘Rio Bravo’.
We owe these heroes a great deal – it is our solemn responsibility to ensure that all veterans receive the care and respect they have earned.
I am not immune to the lure of a signed record, flier or set list. The fact that your music heroes potentially had, in their own hands, the record you now have in yours is kind of cool. When the musician has departed, it can give the thing a unique power.
My heroes were gospel blues players like Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, not whoever was number one.
Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.
Action films are great, but an action film that has characters that are compelling and a story that people can care about is something even better. We love to see action heroes that are vulnerable, that are sensitive, that are family people, that are accessible.
The truth is, I don’t have any problem with journalists – I count some of them as friends – also some of my heroes are journalists, I’m a big fan of Robert Fisk – great people or crazy people who are prepared to stand up for what’s right.
Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do.
I’m really influenced by ’90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were my heroes growing up.
No matter where people stand on the policies that led to the conflicts, Americans recognize the depth of sacrifice and patriotism of our men and women in uniform. Everyone agrees these heroes deserve every advantage we can give them.
I grew up a wrestling fan, so to be doing what my ‘heroes’ were doing when I was a kid, it’s fun. I have fun out there.
I think John Coltrane is one of the great American heroes, like Abraham Lincoln and Emily Dickinson.
We all must make hatemongers unwelcome in our towns and communities. And we must stand by the heroes in this struggle, the police and county prosecutors who stand up to the extremists.
I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David.
Our young people are patriots and heroes whom we can be proud of before the world; that they have a large contingent of such trustworthy young people is a great blessing for the Workers’ Party of Korea and a source of pride for Korea, and this assures the great strength of our dignified state and its bright future.
The people who stood out in the Sandy Hook incident, the heroes, were the normal, ordinary people who went to save those children.
It would be nice to say the rich people, the fancy people, all behaved like bastards and the poor slobs all came through like heroes. But as a matter of fact, sometimes the poor slobs behave like slobs and the great, noble, privileged characters come off very well, indeed.
Heroes are people who are all good with no bad in them. That’s the way I always saw Joe DiMaggio. He was beyond question one of the greatest players of the century.
The most influential person in my life had been George Michael. He was very important to me and was one of my musical heroes growing up. Then he became a friend and mentor and someone I’d lean on.
My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that – so I’ve tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the ’60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson’s songs.
My heroes would never let me down; they never have. I’ve never been disappointed by any of them.
When we contemplate the heroes of Christianity, and compare our feeble efforts with their astonishing performance and self devotion, we should fall into despair, were there not a few softening features, by which they are brought back to the ranks of humanity.
The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike.
I had some great role models along the way. My on-field heroes were the great Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Willie Mays. I wanted to be like them on the field, and I am so damn proud to join them in the Hall of Fame.
When I was a kid, my heroes were not baseball players nor movie stars. My knights in shining armor were film critics.
Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.
I’m not sure why I’m so drawn to heroes who do bad things and to villains who think they’re the good guys, but I do find that moral ambiguity and conflict makes for great characters.
As a successful romantic novelist – one of my publishers is Mills & Boon – I create the sort of male heroes that no woman could fail to adore and few real men could hope to emulate.
Few American presidents are held in higher esteem than Thomas Jefferson. Though historians have scrutinized every phase of his long public career and found him wanting in a number of respects, he holds an unshakable place in the pantheon of American heroes.
How fantastic that the American ingenuity of NASA scientists got us to Mars. It makes me proud to be an American. I can’t get enough of these images from when the probe touched down. These scientists are American heroes.
Teachers are heroes.
One of the reasons I had moved to London to pursue my career was that I could go to the clubs in the evening and maybe meet my heroes, people like Donovan and Bert Jansch and Dylan. I actually did see Dylan in a club one night.
There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
As we reflect back upon the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes who were aboard that fateful day, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us, as they climbed aloft on a plume of propellant gasses, reaching for the stars, to inspire us who were Earthbound.
In my eyes, there’s heroes I look up to. People who saved me – my caretakers, people at Boston Medical Center. My surgeon. The people that pulled me off that ground, who pulled me out. Those are my heroes. The police. The paramedics. Those are the true heroes.
