David Grann Quotes

Heroes are necessary in order to enable the citizens to find their own ideals, courage and wisdom in the society. The hero carries our hopes, our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. In the deepest sense the hero is created by us; he or she is born collectively as our own myth. This is what makes heroism so important: it reflects our own sense of identity and from this our own heroism is molded.

I had no role models from my own community - there was no such thing. Earlier on, there were people like Dolores Del Rio, but I was too young for that - that was before me. There was really nobody out there.

A nation without heroes is nothing.

I have no role models. Many heroes. I have an enormous capacity for hero worship.

I'm bad at picking heroes.

Americans have a profound longing for heroes - now perhaps more than ever. We need our explorers, our sports icons, our Medal of Freedom winners, our Nobel laureates. We need our Greatest Generation warriors, our 'Sully' Sullenbergers, our Neil Armstrongs. On some level, we still subscribe to the myth of the man in the white hat.

What we usually do to great men and women is relegate them to homogenised heroism. Their words and actions become soundbites and images in a way that gives us an excuse not to act bravely in our own lives.

At first, I had this huge desire to play a superhero, that little kid in me. Then I realized it wasn't actually a superhero I wanted to play: it was someone fighting for a cause that's bigger than themselves, which can go into all sorts of things.

I just feel like people need role models, you know, that are dressed.

Your heroes will help you find good in yourself.

It's not just children who need heroes.

I don't apply [being a role model] to the choices I make. I feel like a role model is not necessarily someone you want to imitate, just someone you admire.

Every generation has to find their own heroes.

Every time I met any of my heroes I was disappointed - the exception was Joe Strummer, who was like an uncle to me.

I'm not saying that maybe there isn't a kid out there whose behavior hasn't been influenced by me in some way. I'm sure there is. But I can only speak for myself, and if you'd asked if my behavior had ever been affected by people I'd admired from afar, like musicians or footballers, that'd be a yes, totally. Right down to their hand gestures.

When knowledge is cut off from traditional values, it becomes disastrous.

There were three people I always wanted to meet: Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Nelson Mandela.

Hollywood and film portray who we are as a people and what we value as a culture.

Because my home life was nuts, I didn't look to my parents for help. I looked to my teachers. They made me who I am. They took on a parental role. They're like celebrities or heroes to me.

It's good for kids to look up to sporting role models.

I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Mr. Cary Grant.

I was worried that all the corners of the earth had been explored, all the great battles fought. The famous people on TV were athletes and actresses and singers. What did they stand for? I wondered: Had the time for heroes passed?

Politics is chiefly a function of culture, at the heart of culture is morality, and at the heart of morality is religion.

Southern man better keep your head, don't forget what your good book says.

I think that there are many ways in which people look for heroes, messiahs, things like that in society. I think some people are looking for something that maybe they don't possess. To me, ultimately, you are looking for someone who understands you, or at least you think understands you. It all comes down to understanding for who we look to as heroes.