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The real heroes, and heroines, are those who deal heroically with the everyday cares of life, though God knows they’ve been multiplied enormously. It’s not the guy who kills a dragon once in his lifetime and then retires that’s a hero. It's the guy who kills cockroaches and rats every day, day after day, and doesn't rest on his laurels until he’s an old man, if then.

— Philip José Farmer

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Heroes

More quotes by Philip José Farmer

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

Prometheus, I have no Titan's might,
Yet I, too, must each dusk renew my heart,
For daytime's vulture talons tear apart
The tender alcoves built by love at night.

Let's give this entity which you call soul another name. Soul has too many incorrect meanings for humans, too many verbal reverberations, too many contrary definitions.

The Magic Labyrinth (1980)

Of course, I’m only indulging in mankind’s vice of trying to make a symbol out of coincidence.

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

A miracle: a chance distribution of events, occurring one time in a billion.

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

All Philip José Farmer quotes →

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Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.

Will Rogers

The grandest of heroic deeds are those which are performed within four walls and in domestic privacy.

Jean Paul Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

The blood of the heroes is closer to God than the ink of the philosophers and the prayers of the faithful.

Julius Evola Revolt Against the Modern World (1934)

Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you.

Brandon Sanderson Rhythm of War (2020)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Philip José Farmer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.