Joseph Campbell Quotes

There has to be a protagonist who has to overcome challenges, and there will be a race to finish.

The hero sees that the event is ancillary: it must follow him.

What's a hero, if not for its journey. I think you're going to recontextualize what saving the world means, and I think that you will be satisfied with the stakes. That's all I can say about that.

The adventure that the hero is ready for is the one he gets.

The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero.

Roddy how many times have you won a World Championship?

I realized that Owen [Suskind] is completely brilliant, because he embraced and memorized all these classic Disney films - these fables that chronicle the hero's journey, and have existed for thousands of years. Owen, in a sense, grew up on a diet of myth and fable, and has become an expert on their themes, which contain a moral guide that connects people.

The Tale of Despereaux came at the request of Luke, my friend's then-eight-year-old son, who asked, "Write for me the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears."

We are all proud of is World War II where we went in, we were decisive, we came to the conclusion that freedom prevailed, and we were heroes.

I think part of a hero construct is overcoming loss, or being abandoned, or having to make your own way in the world.

There's only room for one hero in this story-and everyone knows the devil doesn't get to be the good guy.

The world needs heroes and it's better they be harmless men like me than villains like Hitler

I mentioned before, these [classic Disney films] are classic mythological tales, a hero's journey, and have been told for thousands of years. Disney has updated them, and made them accessible for us.

Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek warriors around Troy, and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all.... he is a complete man as well, a good man.

As infants, our first victory comes in grasping some bit of the world, usually our mother's fingers. Later we discover that the world, and the things of the world, are grasping us, and have been all along.

The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.

Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.

The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.

I don't want to have a good fight, I don't want to have an exciting fight, I want to have a finish.

I'm very happy because I won a lot. I've won races and lived in a world that just gave me joy, so I remember it very positively.

Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historica l, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former-the youngest or despised child who becomes the master of extraordinary powers-prevails over his personal oppressors, the latter brings back from his adventure the means for the regeneration of his society as a whole.

She always did like tales of adventure-stories full of brightness and darkness. She could tell you the names of all King Arthur's knights, and she knew everything about Beowulf and Grendel, the ancient gods and the not-quite-so-ancient heroes. She liked pirate stories, too, but most of all she loved books that had at least a knight or a dragon or a fairy in them. She was always on the dragon's side by the way.

A good story is always a journey. It is about taking the journey, the people the hero meets along the way and how they change him or her. All stories are journeys. They don't have to be shocking or outrageous: they simply have to be interesting.

This is the way we win over our enemies, not with bigger weapons, or faster ships, but with human courage, ingenuity, and sacrifice. Don't lose hope. We've faced the darkness before-it has nothing new to teach us. As we go about our lives, let us remember the example Dr. Navarro set for us. At the right time, anyone can be a hero.