About Steven Pressfield: Steven Pressfield is an American author, of historical fiction and non-fiction, and screenplays.
When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers.
We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.
The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good an...
We’re all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidenti...
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.
...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.
The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable.
The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.
The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.
It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your...
The hack is like a politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders.
We're never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly. The act of courage calls for infallibly that deeper part of ourselves that supports and sustains us.
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don't do it. It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or wri...
This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit ...
Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
