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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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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Come
Play
Never
Wakes
Athlete
Hurt
Free
Pain

More quotes by Steven Pressfield

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As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture.
Steven Pressfield
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The opposite of fear is love - love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.
Steven Pressfield
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It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.
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I am going to write my symphony I'm just going to start tomorrow.
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Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work they're just taking dictation.
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Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
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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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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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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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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The professional does not wait for inspiration he acts in anticipation of it.
Steven Pressfield
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Do I really believe that my work is crucial to the planet's survival? Of course not. But it's as important to me as catching that mouse is to the hawk circling outside my window. He's hungry. He needs a kill. So do I.
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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The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
Steven Pressfield
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On the artist's journey we are redefining and reconfiguring ourselves and our lives.
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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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.
Steven Pressfield
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The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.
Steven Pressfield
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In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
Steven Pressfield
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Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
Steven Pressfield