Your face when you came back from diving that time told me everything; there is a hunger in you, Clark. A fearlessness. You just buried it, like most people do.

This shit about being fearless before death ain't got no quality. How could you say you were fearless about leaving the party, even in stir—even franks and rice taste good when you're hungry, even an iron bar feels good to touch, it feels good to sleep. It's like a party even in maximum security and who wants to walk out of a party into something that nobody knows anything at all about?

“This shit about being fearless before death ain't got no quality. How could you say you were fearless about leaving the party, even in stir—even franks and rice taste good when you're hungry, even an iron bar feels good to touch, it feels good to sleep. It's like a party even in maximum security and who wants to walk out of a party into something that nobody knows anything at all about?”

I can certainly identify with The Villain. A Villain is someone who has a past, who is strongly opinionated, fearless, doesn't get intimated by anything, and went beyond suffering. It's an empowerment figure.

They say the young are fearless, but I would rather be brave. To dive into something with no regard for the consequences is not insignificant, but to predict, recognize, and prepare for all possible consequences and still charge on is something to marvel at, something to aspire to.

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

Ultimately, I think the #1 thing that draws me to someone is their sense of freedom. Freedom and confidence are two different things, in my book. Confidence is overrated — it can be faked, whereas freedom is fearlessness.

For me, it's not necessarily interesting to play a strong, fearless woman. It's interesting to play a woman who is terrified and then overcomes that fear. It's about the journey. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's overcoming it.

I've done plenty of daredeviling - from white-water rafting to bungee jumping. But I think the most fearless was hosting the Emmy Awards. It was overwhelming, and I definitely had to leave fear at the door.

The highest courage is not to be found in the instinctive acts of men who risk their lives to save a friend or slay a foe the physical fearlessness of a moment or an hour is not to be compared with immolation of months or years for the sake of wisdom or art.