Johnson said his debut novel, published in 2005, was "a story without heroes set in a city where there are far too many."

Without heroes, we must make do with celebrities.

Lou Reed wrote the lyric, "A world without heroes is like a world without sun".

"Without heroes we would all be plain people and wouldn't know how far we can go."

He wrote that the story "develops its heroes precisely in order to ask us if we would not in fact be better off without heroes".

It's very hard to have a music tradition without heroes.

It called the three "brave hearts without medals, humanitarians without parades and heroes without statues."

And Man could not live without heroes.

Brazil's inflation rate is 45 percent a month, and a series of corruption scandals has left the country without political heroes.

In the dust and dirt of a city playground, pure baseball is played without hot dogs, heroes or joyless thoughts of major league squabbles.