Edward Cline said this quote

It was flawless, correct, and beautiful. 'This is mine,' he said to himself. He felt tears well up in his eyes, tears of joy. Oh, what a blessing it was to be a man, to create, to labor and produce such a great thing - to be alive! It was a splendid thing he had done! He rose from his desk and looked down on the neat pile of paper before him with a smile and eyes narrowed in fierce, immaculate greed. He raised his arms in triumph, fists clenched, and laughed once. What a glorious thing is pride! It is almost an end in itself! No wonder churchmen preached against it! A truly proud man is not to be found in their flocks of souls humbled by the rumor of a great invisible wizard and the inexplicable! If it is a sin to feel such pride, then it is a sin to be a man!

~ Edward Cline

A boy adopts a hero for two reasons: because a hero captivates his soul and serves as a projection of his innermost self; and, because a hero seems to have solved many problems that may worry a boy, or at least demonstrates the capacity to solve them. The hero is an idealization of successful living, even though he may die in a story. The death may be gallant, brave, tragic, or perhaps even foolhardy. But living or dead, a hero is the stylistic embodiment of living on one’s own terms – noble terms, grand terms, exciting terms – terms, in short, that complement any youth’s uncorrupted, untamed, unabridged projection of what is possible to him in life

~ Edward Cline