Quotes from Steven Pressfield

He is, we are told, a warrior from a bygone era, an old-fashioned knight for whom the virtues of chivalry and respect for the foe are indivisible from the passion for victory. In other words," says Kennedy Shaw, "you can't even hate the bastard!

He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots. He looks in the mirror and sees GI Joe. Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility. It purges pride and preciousness.

Tutors are usually shaggy, ill-groomed junior dons who smoke and drink to excess and never leave their rooms except for illicit sexual liaisons or to replenish their stocks of tobacco and spirits. A

she doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in anticipation of its apparition.

The linebacker and the Army Ranger go into action as part of a team. But the artist and the entrepreneur enter combat alone. I take my hat off to every man or woman who does this.

A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.

We don't tell ourselves, I'm never going to write my symphony. Instead we say, I am going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.

If you cave in today you're 2x as likely to cave tomorrow. If you so much say hello, you're finished. Don't even pick up the phone.

The ultimate source of creativity, he argues, is divine.

The field is leveled only in heaven.

A real writer (or artist or entrepreneur) has something to give. She has lived enough and suffered enough and thought deeply enough about her experience to be able to process it into something that is of value to others, even if only as entertainment.

What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code or the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service. The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing. Yet they dueled dragons.

All I know how to do is work.

How did you keep going all those years without any success?" I couldn't have answered at the time, except to say that I had no choice. Any time I tried to take the intelligent course, i.e., get a real job, I became so depressed I couldn't stand it.

Our guns do not strip the foe of life with surgical strokes. They take them in a holocaust.

The humanist believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God. This is why he values human life so highly. In his view, things do progress, life does evolve; each individual has value, at least potentially, in advancing this cause.

If we can't finish, all our work is for nothing.

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not.

This is how command passes from a weak officer to a stronger. No rank alters; no papers are filed. Without a word, every man understands.

I experienced it as a compulsion to self-destruct. I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more different ways I'd find to screw it up.

victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through

When fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age.

We have the right to our labor but not to the fruit of our labor.