Quotes from Steven Pressfield

The ordeal of command consists in this: that one makes decisions of fatal consequence based on ludicrously inadequate intelligence.

A commander's role is to model arete, excellence, before his men. One need not thrash them to greatness; only hold it out before them. They will be compelled by their own nature to emulate it.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.   Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

The professional blows critics off. He doesn't even hear them. Critics, he reminds himself, are the unwitting mouthpieces of Resistance and as such can be truly cunning and pernicious. They can articulate in their reviews the same toxic venom that Resistance itself concocts inside our heads. That is their real evil. Not that we believe them, but that we believe the Resistance in our own minds, for which critics serve as unconscious spokespersons.

I sometimes thought to myself, Steve, you've got it lucky now, no distractions, you can focus full-time. What are you gonna do when life gets complicated again?

That year made me a pro. It gave me, for the first time in my life, an uninterrupted stretch of month after month that was mine alone, that nobody knew about but me, when I was truly productive, truly facing my demons, and truly working my shit. That year has stuck with me.

Angels are agents of evolution.

BOOK TWO COMBATING RESISTANCE

What is it about featureless wastes that appeals so powerfully to the Anglo-Saxon soul?

Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship.

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.   Why is this so important?   Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

What appeared as unendurable hardship to soldiers of other nationalities produced a species of exhilaration in our lads, raised on a diet of Kipling and institutional porridge. Some

Creating soap opera in our lives is a symptom of Resistance.

The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level.

New York City is too big to function as a hierarchy. So is IBM. So is Michigan State. The individual in multitudes this vast feels overwhelmed, anonymous. He is submerged in the mass. He's lost.

My friend Tony Keppelman snapped me out of it by asking if I was gonna quit. Hell, no! Then be happy. You're where you wanted to be, aren't you? So you're taking a few blows. That's the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful. That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure. FOR LOVE OF THE GAME

Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance.

The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals. Each asks the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?

faces at a dead run. Yet never have my heart and

Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren't sick, they're self- dramatizing. Sometimes the hardest part of a medical job is keeping a straight face. As Jerry Seinfeld observed of his twenty years of dating: That's a lot of acting fascinated.

A good tutor can make one's college experience a revolutionary passage, to life as well as to literature; a bad one can make it misery.

Do I really believe that my work is crucial to the planet's survival? Of course not. But it's as important to me as catching that mouse is to the hawk circling outside my window. He's hungry. He needs a kill. So do I. I'm

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution. Recall the fate of Odysseus' men who slew the cattle of the sun. Their

Egyptians cannot believe Israelis are all