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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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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
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Port-of-Spain
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Drama
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War
Conflict
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The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
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When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
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You have never tasted freedom, friend, or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.
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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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When we sit down to work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
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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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Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
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Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.
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The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.
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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.
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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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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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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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We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.
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Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work they're just taking dictation.
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