It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those that tend to tie it back.

The hero, the waker of his own soul, is himself but the convenient means of his own dissolution.

The problem of the hero is to pierce himself (and therewith his world) precisely through that point; to shatter and annihilate that key knot of his limited existence.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself

Heroism is a matter of integrity--becoming more and more at each step ourselves.