Steven Pressfield, The War Of Art: Break Through The Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles Quotes

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 most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.

...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

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.

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.

We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers.

There's a problem with the hierarchical orientation, though. When the numbers get too big, the thing breaks down. A pecking order can hold only so many chickens.

The hack is like a politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders.

Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you, ” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.

It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.