Steven Pressfield Quotes

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.

The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.

The hero’s journey can take place on a battlefield or in a cubicle. We can live it out amid public clamor or in the soundless vault between our ears. The demons we are dueling are always the same. They are our own fears of becoming who we are. No one who has ever lived — or ever will — has a journey like ours. And yet our journey is universal. It is every woman’s and every man’s.

"Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors.

All are continually asking, "What does this represent? What does it stand for?"

They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again."

"Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp."
That's a pro.

The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will fell when you finally do it.

Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

Don’t prepare. Begin.

The professional knows when he has fallen short of his own standards. He will murder his darlings without hesitation, if that's what it takes to stay true to the goddess and to his own expectations of excellence.

Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there's tremendous love there too.

Resistance has no conscience.

You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid. Where there is work to do, turn your hand to it first; the men will follow. Some of you, I see, have erected tents. Strike them at once. We will all sleep as I do, in the open. Keep your men busy. If there is no work, make it up, for when soldiers have time to talk, their talk turns to fear. Action, on the other hand, produces the appetite for more action.

The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are.

I have always found the spear to be a rather inelegant weapon