Presidents seem to fall into two positive categories: they're one of us, or they're heroes. Both McCain and Obama probably see themselves as potential heroes - presidents who will be looked up to, not presidents everyday people will remark are 'just like me.'
There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
No matter where people stand on the policies that led to the conflicts, Americans recognize the depth of sacrifice and patriotism of our men and women in uniform. Everyone agrees these heroes deserve every advantage we can give them.
We will never forget the passengers of Flight 93, who courageously confronted the terrorists, defeating another planned attack on America. They are the heroes for our times.
Our athletes are our heroes.
Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.
The key element in tragedy is that heroes and heroines are destroyed by that which appears to be their greatest strength.
By that I mean, I think that it is true that politics and political heroes have to satisfy our need to be greater than mortal in some way, and that's led them into creating illusions, sound bites, focus groups that tell you what to do.
We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day.
I was sure we would never see the adoption of the Euro. Countries giving up their currencies for a common tender was, it seemed to me, completely out of tune with currency being a carrier of people's cultural identity, celebrating national heroes and events, as it had been for hundreds of years.
See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn't dead, Elvis isn't dead. Otherwise you don't have a hero. You can't kill a hero. That's why I never let him get older.
We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.
When I was around 12, my heroes were Cindy Sherman and Bob Dylan and Samuel Westing from the kids' novel 'The Westing Game'.
The appeal of the Golden Age heroes for me is their simplicity, even their naivety - they represent the fundamental building blocks of the whole superhero genre, whether it's a 'super' man able to lift cars, or a vigilante who terrorises criminals at night like Batman.
We thank thee for this opportunity to show our love for these heroes who have accomplished such wonders for the beloved United States, which was founded by noble and inspired men.
The heroes of the present will retreat to the imitation they are anyhow.
I'm not interested in the heroes or the villains. I'm interested in playing people.
When I was a kid growing up, I liked the sympathetic characters played by Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, and James Stewart. They were my heroes. No matter what happened to them, they survived with their dignity intact.
I was only a gun captain on the battleship Alabama for 34 months. People have called me a hero for that, but I'll tell you this - heroes don't come home. Survivors come home.
You read in any war stories - World War II, whatever - that there are many, many heroes. There are the main stories you always hear about, but there are all these other little people that did things that were very important that we don't always know about.
The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike.
The unsung heroes of the civil rights movement were always the wives and the mothers.
My heroes are, above all, the great 19th-century Americans: Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson and the others. I love the way they think.
On the day my daughter was born, I started writing a book for her. The plan was that, over the course of her life, I'd fill it with advice on how to be a strong woman. But along the way, I got caught up in the stories of Amelia Earhart, Sally Ride, and so many others. So how do you pick the best heroes for your kids?
Alzheimer's caregivers are heroes.
In the film world, we can all be heroes. In the real world, where heroism can cost you your life or the life of the ones you love, people aren't so willing to make those sacrifices. When they do, they are set apart from the rest of us.
I ended up on 'Heroes' because I auditioned for the part like everybody else, but the writers were writing the role of Daphne, which was originally called Joy.
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama; fathers and sons, martyred heroes, star-crossed lovers, the deaths of kings - stories that taught us of the danger of hubris and the primacy of humility.
And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.
I have prayed with the families and wept at the funerals of Hoosiers who did not shrink from 9-11 but grew into heroes whose names will forever be engraved in the heart of a grateful nation.
I had my footballing heroes such as Bryan Robson and Diego Maradona but my dad was a rugby league star, and he was my real hero. But the relationship with my mum was rocky and we saw things that would affect any youngster.
I knew how to read box scores and who the baseball heroes were before I had ever seen or even heard much of a game.
My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.
I don't have any idols, any heroes, nothing, no.
Our heroes are fighting to bring stability to the Middle East, and they have put pressure on all of the tyrannies of the Middle East. They have taken a stand against tyranny, against terrorists, and for the prospect of decent societies throughout that region.
