“Heroic poetry tends in its simplest form to be concerned with immediate events and local heroes. A certain length of tradition is required before the epic poem, telling the story of the hero, becomes current. Heroic poetry assumes that the audience knew what the outcome of the battle was, and is concerned with individual feats; the context is of little importance. Epic poems only become attractive as a form when the audience needs to be told who the heroes were.”

“A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.”

“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.”

“To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

“Courage is merely a result of vanity and pride. We act valiantly not out of selfless concern and responsibility but out of our own conceit and egoism. If not for an audience there would be less heroes.”

“Long ago I left heroics to the heroes”

“The critics say that epics have died out with Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods; I'll not believe it. I could never deem as Payne Knight did, that Homer's heroes measured twelve feet high. They were but men: -his Helen's hair turned grey like any plain Miss Smith's who wears a front; And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume as yours last Friday at a turkey-cock. All heroes are essential men, and all men possible heroes: every age, heroic in proportions, double faced, looks backward and before, expects a morn and claims an epos.”