Annie Lennox Quotes

I feel like I learned very early on that your heroes are only as powerful as your villains. And I'm attracted to intelligent villains.

A villain can be stylish, and his actions don't have to be explained. Heroes are boring in comparison, even anti-heroes, as there's always a justification for their bad actions.

Boy I could do this forever; I truly enjoy bad guys.

For God's sake stop making people in your image. Harry was real. He wasn't just your hero and my lover. He was Harry. He was in a racket. He did bad things. What about it? He was the man we knew.

Natural villains are hard to come by, what with all the shrinks and social-scientist types threatening to understand everybody into the ground.

People always ask me what I think, if Edward Snoden is a hero, if he's a villain. I don't really tend to moralize it so much as I feel like he's a whistleblower. He's someone who saw a wrongdoing and in order to shine a light on that wrongdoing had to bend some rules and break some laws along the way.

A villain who shares one's guilt is inevitably more attractive than a hero convinced of one's innocence.

Villains are kind of hard to really know on a personal level when you see them as mean, unsensitive-type people.

It's a movie, OK? I went to see GONE WITH THE WIND, but did I really believe there was a guy named Rhett Butler who said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"? No. Movies need heroes and villains, and real life doesn't usually have heroes and villains. Real life has a lot of shades of gray, and moves have black and white even when they're in color.

Men of real talents in Arms have commonly approved themselves patrons of the liberal arts and friends to the poets, of their own as well as former times. In some instances by acting reciprocally, heroes have made poets, and poets heroes.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads.

The more romance novelists that are out there, making romanticized ideas of vampirism for the kids, the more people want to see a real action movie, putting the bad guys where they belong, as the bad guys, and looking for a hero to come along and defend our very souls.

You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one's life. So you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That's not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one's clichés.

I think that there are just people who are hurting other people, sometimes for the best of intentions and sometimes for the worst. In different times in my life, I've been the hero and I've been the villain. I also think that we're all evil sometimes.

They say a man should be judged by his enemies. I am very proud of mine.

What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.

I've played people that are on the line of evil and good, but that's life. We are always playing with the good and the bad. I see them as people. I don't see them as caricatures. I try to not make them caricatures. Maybe I fail, but I try to see what' behind them. Would I play the hero? A superhero? I don't think so. But, I play good guys. There are some there, but you have to look.

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices they would call "hard but necessary" for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.

All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

It's hard for me to believe sometimes that my three kids never met my dad. Because one of the things - one of the real blessings to me is that while my dad left this Earth when I was in my 20s, he's just as much a part of, of my life now than he was then, in terms of I often think of my dad. I think of what my dad might do in a certain situation. And so he continues to be, you know, my hero, my role model.

It is an unhappy lot which finds no enemies.

My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward. That world, that city, often kills them for their brave service.

History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

No one wants to set out to be a hero, and discover that they've been a villain all along.