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The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending; death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms which we have loved.

— Joseph Campbell The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

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More quotes by Joseph Campbell

It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.

Comments on a passage in Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

The achievement of the hero is one that he is ready for and it's really a manifestation of his character.

The Power of Myth (1988)

Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking.

The Power of Myth (1988)

All Joseph Campbell quotes →

Attribution

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