...among the Aztecs, for example, who had a number of heavens to which people's souls would be assigned according to the conditions of their death, t… - Joseph Campbell

Giving birth is definitely a heroic deed, in that it is the giving over of oneself to the life of another.

The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths.

Sentiment is an echo of violence. It's not really a vital expression.

Joseph Campbell affirmed life as adventure. “To hell with it,” he said, after his university adviser tried to hold him to a narrow academic curriculum. He gave up on the pursuit of a doctorate and went instead into the woods to read. He continued all his life to read books about the world: anthropology, biology, philosophy, art, history, religion. And he continued to remind others that one sure path into the world runs along the printed page.