Steven Brust Quotes

You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two; don't make two moves at one time; move up, not down; and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.

Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.

A hero is someone we can admire without apology.

I like to say I'm not a hero.

I am not a hero.

Nelson Mandela is awe inspiring - a person who really sacrificed for what he believed in. I feel truly humbled by him.

The only reason anyone ever called me a hero is because I get this paper, here.

I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero. The minute anybody presumes that they are heroes, they get their boots taken away from them and buried in the sand.

For me, Charles Xavier is a monk. He's like a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality.

If I were the blushing kind, I would blush to be called a hero.

I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.

You can see how he changed on the surface. But at the core of it all, I think Superman has remained the same - a character with incredible powers but almost superhuman humility and restraint.

Even now, we make no apologies for the choice we made. The sacrifices we made were selfless. The options we offered were patriotic while the paths we chose were well thought out.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

I'm not a savior.

Vietnam helped me realize who the true heroes really are in this world. It's not the home-run hitters.

Amongst the qualities a hero should have, I would include determination, loyalty, courage, perseverance, patience, focus, intrepidity and selflessness.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.

The point is that you can't be too greedy.

Renunciation - that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

The guy who finally pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden is not patting himself on the back. He's giving as much credit to his teammates who got him to that position.

Martyrs win by losing.

If you are a leader, setting forward your plans according to that which you decide, perform perfect actions which posterity may remember, without letting the words prevail with you which multiply flattery, which excite pride and produce vanity.

A degree of silence envelops [George] Washington’s actions; he moved slowly; one might say that he felt charged with future liberty, and that he feared to compromise it. It was not his own destiny that inspired this new species of hero: it was that of his country; he did not allow himself to enjoy what did not belong to him; but from that profound humility what glory emerged! Search the woods where Washington’s sword gleamed: what do you find? Tombs? No; a world! Washington has left the United States behind for a monument on the field of battle.