The Hero with a Thousand Faces Coming of Age Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Page.Paragraph)

Quote #4

The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart. (100.2)

There's a fair amount of sexual innuendo here, where "ultimate reward" translates to "epic nookie." But since it's such a fundamental part of human life and because sexual experience is a pretty good marker of coming-of-age, Campbell isn't out of line to suggest it.

Quote #5

Thus she unites the "good" and the "bad," exhibiting the two modes of the remembered mother, not as personal only, but as universal. The devotee is expected to contemplate the two with equal equanimity. Through this exercise his spirit is purged of its infantile, inappropriate sentimentalities and resentments, and his mind opened to the inscrutable presence which exists, not primarily as "good" and "bad" with respect to his childlike human convenience, his weal and woe, but as the law and image of the nature of being. (105.1)

Campbell always maintains that good and evil are false constructs, which we need to do away with in order to achieve enlightenment. Part of the whole "my enemy is myself" notion, which he likes as well.

Quote #6

Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. (106.3)

There's no mistaking the coming-of-age theme here and the way it uses sexuality—especially the experienced woman and the young man in need of initiation—to make its point. Get a room, you crazy kids!