Kesey creates finally in McMurphy a modern unhero or anti-hero who expands himself, through a gradual shift in his concern from himself to those around him, into the role of the traditional hero. It is a strange and preposterous role... In the modern world, such a hero, individualistic to the point of disaffiliation but at the same time altruistic to the point of self-sacrifice, is by definition absurd; and all people and actions touched by such heroism are tinted by its absurdity.
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Joseph J. Waldmeir in "Two Novelists of the Absurd: Heller and Kesey" (1964)Ken Kesey
When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.
Christopher Reeve
A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is "sensitive"; or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture — in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers.
Andrea Dworkin
Here’s my definition of a hero. A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves. One thing I’m sure about is I’m real ordinary. Yet I’ve had the chance to touch the lives of a lotta people.”
Werner Erhard
You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero! ... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.
Romain Rolland
Our Lord Jesus Christ, my brethren, is our hero, a hero all the world wants.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Kesey, Ken
Kesselring, Albert
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