HERO IS NOT A NOUN. IT'S A VERB.

HERO IS NOT A NOUN. IT’S A VERB.

Robert Downey Jr. said that in an interview that

I was reading with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway looking over my shoulder.

He growled, “The man’s right.” 

Then, he read the next sentence and snapped,

“How can a man get it right one breath and go tragically wrong the next?”

“Isn’t that the human condition?” I asked.

“Ha!” snorted Hemingway and stormed off into the shadows of my apartment. 

(He gets that way sometimes.)

What was the next sentence?

“Heroism’s one aspect of an entire spectrum of things –

an act of courage is no more important than an act of cowardice.”

Hemingway called out from the darkness,

“Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy. 

But by God, it will be one worth reading.  If Lord Jim had stayed a coward, Conrad’s book would have been shit!”

What do you think of Downey’s remarks, of Hemingway’s?

I just found out that Ann Best has said good-bye to blogging to concentrate on Jen, recently admitted to the Behavioral Ward in their hospital and to get better from her terrible cold. 

It made me sad. I am happy that she was able to be published, find success in sales, and friends in the blogverse.

{Image courtesy of Esquire Magazine.}