Quote

The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.

Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Work
Wholeheartedly
Invested
Professional
Loves
Forget
Doe

More quotes by Steven Pressfield

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Start before you’re ready.
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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.
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If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
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The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.
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Resistance really takes the shape, for me, in voices in my head telling me why I can't do something or why I should put it off for another day, procrastinate for another day.
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We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own I'm not worthy mind-set.
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Making a judgment, taking a stand and then acting against an injustice or acting to support excellence is the stuff of the everyman hero. If you are an aspiring artist and you wish to avoid “judgments,” you'll find that you have nothing to say.
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Resistance is experienced as fear the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
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Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work they're just taking dictation.
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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.
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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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Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors.
Steven Pressfield
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Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.
Steven Pressfield
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Resistance in my experience always kicks in when you're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level or to identify with a braver part of yourself or your higher nature. So it's that negative repelling force. It's kind of the dragon that we have to slay every day if we're artists or entrepreneurs.
Steven Pressfield
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Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
Steven Pressfield
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The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
Steven Pressfield
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There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: 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.
Steven Pressfield
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What force is yanking at our sleeves? This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don't even notice. But it's a miracle.
Steven Pressfield
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To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls.
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Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave to defend makes them timorous.
Steven Pressfield