You can't be a hero without being a coward.

 

You can't be a hero without being a coward.
--
Preface

 

George Bernard Shaw

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At 20, reflecting on Cus D'Amato: "Cus was my father but he was more than a father. You can have a father and what does it mean?—it doesn't really mean anything. Cus was my backbone . . . . He did everything for my best interest . . . . We'd spend all our time together, talk about things that, later on, would come back to me. Like about character, and courage. Like the hero and the coward: that the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters."

 

Mike Tyson

 

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed. He doesn't boast of his own death or of others'. But he does not repent. He suffers and keeps his mouth shut; if anything, others then exploit him, making him a myth, while he, the man worthy of esteem, was only a poor creature who reacted with dignity and courage in an event bigger than he was.

 

Umberto Eco

 

In literature, a hero is as much of a coward as the poorest beggar of the street.

 

Halldor Laxness

 

The guy's a war hero. He's not a coward like George Bush. He didn't duck into a Champagne unit in the Texas Air National Guard and disappear like George Bush.

 

Mike Malloy

 

The nature of a coward is to avoid death. If such a man courts peril there can be only two reasons. Either he is not a coward at all — or there is no danger.

 

David Gemmell