Religion was the pole-star for my father. Rude and uncultivated as he otherwise was, it made him and kept him "in all points a man." Oh! when I think that all the area in boundless space he had seen was limited to a circle of some fifty miles' diameter (he never in his life was farther or elsewhere so far from home as at Craigenputtoch), and all his knowledge of the boundless time was derived from his Bible and what the oral memories of old men could give him, and his own could gather; and yet, that he was such, I could take shame to myself. I feel to my father — so great though so neglected, so generous also towards me — a strange tenderness, and mingled pity and reverence peculiar to the case, infinitely soft and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me? Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in mine, and more? Thou good father! well may I forever honor thy memory. Surely that act was not without its reward. And was not nature great, out of such materials to make such a man?

"Daddy, were you a hero?" And he answered, "No, but I served with heroes."

I’m told, I’m like my father, and he was the most wonderful man. But I think he was gentler than me.

I am the man my father loved and was.

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

After working with him, he became a real hero of mine because he was so kind to me – I was a 14-year-old kid and knew nothing.

i don't want to give the impression that I fault my father. I don't. The truth is that he's one of my heroes. He's monumental to me. I believed - and still do - that a man must stand in the door of his home and let the wolf get him before the wolf gets his family. The wolf never got my father or his family, and I admire Daddy's guts. He never slacked off work or lied to me or shrugged his responsibilities. He dealt with his family from a distance, but was available, when needed. Eventually I'd do the same. I don't know whether I was copying him or whether, by coincidence, my work, like Daddy's, simply kept me away. All I know is that in many ways, big and small, I've followed my father.

He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds which we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero. After all, heroes were not much.

So many things in the world have happened before. But it's like they never did. Every new thing that happens to a person, it's a first. To be a son of a father was like that. In that night I felt expansion, as if the world was branching out in shoots and growing faster than the eye could see. I felt smallness, how the earth divided into bits and kept dividing. I felt the stars. I felt them roosting on my shoulders with his hand. The moon came up red and warm. (p271)

My father was more of a mystery. He lived most of the time in a farther-away realm more than he lived within the domestic universe of our home. When he was home from work, he moved through the house as if he were walking through water.

I adored my father and I feared him. When he'd lift me up to the sky with a laugh, I yearned to fly. I'd try, but I always disappointed him by crying out with fear of falling. He'd put me down and walk away. Later he'd pull me to his knee and circle me close to his heart. Despite the hurt that made him tight, I knew he loved me. And in the end, I was the one to help lead him through the door of earthly life to the other side.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.

My dad was a good man. A kind man... I...loved him for what he did. He'd foster independence, showed us the value of education, and taught us to be curious about the world. Even more important, he'd helped the three of us become close as siblings, which I consider to be the greatest gift of all. I could have asked for nothing more in a father. And really, who could?