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We cannot let external criticism, even if it's true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.

Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Enough
Internals
Even
Internal
External
Criticism
Already
Strong
True
Fortify
Cannot
Foe

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Traditional publishers will be dominant, and they should be because they really do assure quality. But eBooks, which are huge already, are going to eclipse everything. They will save traditional publishing the way DVDs saved movie studios (for a while) and they'll greatly expand the number of readers.
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When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us... Ideas come. Insights accrete.
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He who whets his steel, whets his courage
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If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.
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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.
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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.
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It is a commonplace among artists and children at play that they're not aware of time or solitude while they're chasing their vision. The hours fly. The sculptress and the tree-climbing tyke both look up blinking when Mom calls, 'Suppertime!'
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Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.
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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.
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Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.
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