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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.

Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Sign
Mystery
Talk
Doesn
Doe
Shuts
Work
Amateur
Preoccupation
Professional

More quotes by Steven Pressfield

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We are all warriors. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in.
Steven Pressfield
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The last element in drama is high stakes. War, of course, is life and death - survival, not only for the story's characters, but often for the society itself. That's why I'm drawn to stories that are built around wars, even if they're not technically war stories.
Steven Pressfield
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It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.
Steven Pressfield
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Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within.
Steven Pressfield
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Don't prepare. Begin. Our enemy is not lack of preparation. The enemy is resistance, our chattering brain producing excuses. Start before you are ready.
Steven Pressfield
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When a novelist or screenwriter is looking for a subject, the element he's seeking is conflict. Conflict makes drama. Conflict produces great characters and memorable scenes. So war is a natural topic.
Steven Pressfield
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Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.
Steven Pressfield
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The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don't create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her.
Steven Pressfield
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As resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels.
Steven Pressfield
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I had always been an enthusiastic reader of stuff about ancient Greece. I would read Herodotus and Thucydides just for fun.
Steven Pressfield
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Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The opposite of love isn’t hate it’s indifference.
Steven Pressfield
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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.
Steven Pressfield
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A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope.
Steven Pressfield
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Resistance is experienced as fear the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
Steven Pressfield
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Persian envoy our arrows will black out the sun... Dienekes of the Spartans..Good, then we'll fight in the shade.
Steven Pressfield
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The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.
Steven Pressfield
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We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.
Steven Pressfield
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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.
Steven Pressfield
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On the field of The Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.
Steven Pressfield
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These are not easy questions. Who am I? Why am I here? They're not easy because the human being isn't wired to function as an individual.
Steven Pressfield