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I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.

Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Wrote
Parts
War
Art
Two
Neatly
Better
Divide
Life
Divides
Turning

More quotes by 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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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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Picasso painted with passion, Mozart composed with it. A child plays with it all day long. You may think you’ve lost your passion, or that you can’t identify it, or that you have so much of it, it threatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true.
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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If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist? chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
Steven Pressfield
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A writer writes with his genius an artist paints with hers everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.
Steven Pressfield
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Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.
Steven Pressfield
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The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt.
Steven Pressfield
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F@*# self-doubt. I despise it. I hold it in contempt, along with the hell-spawned ooze-pit of Resistance from which it crawled. I will NEVER back off. I will NEVER give the work anything less than 100%. If I go down in flames, so be it. I'll be back.
Steven Pressfield
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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.
Steven Pressfield
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The professional conducts his business in the real world. Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all comprise the ground over which the campaign must be waged. The field is level, the professional understands, only in heaven.
Steven Pressfield
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No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting.
Steven Pressfield
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Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional crazy heart.
Steven Pressfield
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When we are succeeding - that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level - that's when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we're about to cross a threshold. We're poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.
Steven Pressfield
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Our job in this lifetime 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.
Steven Pressfield
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Don't wait for someone else to validate you. Validate yourself.
Steven Pressfield
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Right now with blogs and the flood of internet access, a multitude of aspiring writers think they're ready for prime time. They're not. Be great. Read. Write. Bust your ass. Learn and find your voice. As hard as you think it is, it's a hundred times harder.
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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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
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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