Heroes: "Only people who sometimes do heroic things"

Historian H.W. Brands in today's NY Times:

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?

In life I don’t believe in heroes, only people who sometimes do heroic things. And the same people inevitably do unheroic things. That’s what makes them human — and far more interesting than any heroes. This belief informs my biographies, and it’s why my favorite fictional characters are not heroes or protagonists but supporting characters. Jim in “Huckleberry Finn.” Queequeg in “Moby-Dick.” Duke’s attorney in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” The best villain: Madame Defarge in “A Tale of Two Cities.”