This was the first time I really began to face the Peach as not so much a character in a comic book, as a real human being, with all his fallacies and weaknesses.

I hesitate to use the word “hero” about any of my characters. The term has become so very imprecise.  All you have to do is get killed — no matter how — to be called a hero.

“Hero” was originally a girl’s name.  She wasn’t the one doing the striving and swimming — it was Leander.  The concept of “hero” really does seem to mean “drowning while trying.”  But it should properly be a “leander.”