Quotes from Steven Pressfield

Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.

Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working.

The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.

Thr principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos itself is self-organizing. Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbit; rivers make their way to the sea.

We show up. We do our best. Good things happen.

Start before you're ready. Good things happen when we start before we're ready.

Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got.

It's better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

Artists, writers and people in creative fields are entrepreneurs by necessity. Nobody gives them a paycheck or picks up their medical insurance. The ones who succeed learn to think and act like 'independent operators.' I think people who are technically 'employees' have to think this way as well. The company is not looking out for you.

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.

We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.

No industry is immune and no occupation is safe. All of us need to begin to think in terms of our own inner strengths, our resilience and resourcefulness, our capacity to adapt and to rely upon ourselves and our families.

All of us need to begin to think in terms of our own inner strengths, our resilience and resourcefulness, our capacity to adapt and to rely upon ourselves and our families.

The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

If you want to send a manuscript, send it to an agent. And send a letter first, asking permission. Launch it into the real world of cold-blooded commercial response, not into the fantasyland of wishful thinking, cowardice and surrender to Resistance.

Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we're thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin', no matter what.

The amateur tweets. The pro works.

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.

The more you love your art/ calling/ enterprise, the more important its accomplishment to the evolution of your soul, the more you will fear it and the more Resistance you will experience facing it.

Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?