Marv shows little to no fear in dangerous situations, even when heavily outnumbered, and faces them with a dry laconic humor. In "The Hard Goodbye", instead of panicking when cornered by several members of the SWAT team, upon being asked to open the door, he lights up a cigarette and very calmly states "I'll be right out.", before successfully fighting his way out of the building. While Marv has no compunction about maiming and killing anyone he feels has wronged him or those close to him, even he has his limits. He is deeply afraid of winding up as "a maniac [or] a psycho killer" (as mentioned previously). Marv will only kill someone if, as he himself puts it, "I know for sure I ought to." He makes it a point to avoid unnecessarily hurting or killing those who have not earned it in his eyes, and also notes with some amusement that he enjoys confrontations with paid hitmen, since he never feels guilty about what he does to them. A perfect example of his resolve to avoid causing unnecessary harm is when he knocks out Wendy rather than let her watch him dismember Kevin; he believed Wendy witnessing Kevin's dismemberment would cause her a lifetime of nightmares, and would therefore be unnecessarily hurting her, a belief which also superseded his otherwise ironclad rule against hitting women. He also adheres unrelentingly to his own personal code of honor, which dictates the repayment of debts and chivalry towards women, stating that "it really gets my goat when guys rough up dames", even refusing to lay a finger on Gail, who wrongly believed he had killed several prostitutes under her employ, after she tied him to a chair and tortured him for information. He also highly values kindness, often going out of his way to repay kindness shown to him. As such, he will defend anyone whom he considers a friend or has shown him kindness until he is no longer capable, or he feels the debt has been repaid, whichever comes first. As a devout Catholic, Marv condones the violence and blood on his hands, both figurative and literal, as justice against those who would do evil in the world, even if Marv's personal brand of justice might fly in the face of Catholic teachings. It may be best paraphrased as "It may be God's job to judge a man's evil deeds, but it Marv's job to arrange the meeting." noting that some things in this world are, in Marv's own words, "worth going to Hell for".