No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.
Interpretation
This quote humorously critiques the dual nature of heroes, suggesting they often struggle with extreme emotions.
Terry Pratchett's quote highlights the paradoxical nature of heroes, portraying them as individuals who are often burdened with deep sorrow and despair when sober, yet can become dangerously irrational when intoxicated. This depiction invites reflection on the complexities of heroism, suggesting that those we see as heroic may wrestle with significant inner turmoil that contrasts sharply with the idealized image of courage and strength.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the complexities of public figures.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
According to the rules of comedy, your suffering will be funny after an undetermined length of time. Maybe not while you're having your gangrenous leg sawed off, watching your home burn down or learning how to be intimate with your cellmate, but, in the big scheme of things, soon.
You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.
One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're too tired.
A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain.
Sailors ought never to go to church. They ought to go to hell, where it is much more comfortable.
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