That was one of the things that interested me about the character. He doesn't want to be a hero, and has no real desire to save the earth or discover aliens. He's sniffing around looking to see what will fall in his lap. ↗
I asked him a number of questions and I got some very interesting answers. Ken's heroes, according to Christopher, would be people like John Wayne, of course. ↗
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish. ↗
I pledged California to a Northern Republic and to a flag that should have no treacherous threads of cotton in its warp, and the audience came down in thunder. ↗
I've not seen in my lifetime any politician who is a heroic figure. The manipulation that all politicians use on one level or another is so transparent. ↗
We remember the heroes who ran into the burning buildings to rescue those trapped inside, and the dauntless passengers on Flight 93 who laid down their lives to save others, including almost certainly those of us in the U.S. Capitol. ↗
As a boy I used to go to the Chamber of Horrors at the annual fair, to look at the wax figures of Emperors and Kings, of heroes and murderers of the day. The dead now had that same unreality, which shocks without arousing pity. ↗
