Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfieldis an American author, of historical fiction and non-fiction, and screenplays...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
book acquaintance sooner-or-later
When you're a working writer, sooner or later friends and acquaintances will get you alone and confide that they, too, have a book in them.
book people fake
A contemporary or near-future book is much harder because you can't fake the facts. There are people alive who know much more than you do about the subject. You have to really have your research together - and of course no one can know everything about a topic.
believe book inspiration
I believe in previous lives and the Muse—and that books and music exist before they are written and that they are propelled into material being by their own imperative to be born, via the offices of those willing servants of discipline, imagination and inspiration whom we call artists.
closer knew
I knew I wanted to write novels, but I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more ways I'd find to screw it up.
asking commercial cowardice letter send surrender wishful
If you want to send a manuscript, send it to an agent. And send a letter first, asking permission. Launch it into the real world of cold-blooded commercial response, not into the fantasyland of wishful thinking, cowardice and surrender to Resistance.
art divide life pro turning war wrote
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.
answering born call less resistance stunts yield
The more important a call to action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel about answering it. But to yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.
begin capacity inner ourselves rely terms
All of us need to begin to think in terms of our own inner strengths, our resilience and resourcefulness, our capacity to adapt and to rely upon ourselves and our families.
against alone bitten dust forces good men millions potent powerful resistance women
As powerful as is our soul's call, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. We're not alone if we've been mowed down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us.
march glory fame
Fame Imperishable and glory that will never die -- that is what we march for!
fear battle going-away
Fear doesn't go away. The battle must be fought anew every day.
thinking perserverance capacity
We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are... That we actually have the guts, the perserverance, the capacity... because, if it's true, then we become estranged from all we know.
selfish victory skins
For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw, was the victory you Spartans had gained over yourselves. That was the glue. It was what you had learned and it made me stay, to learn it too.
writing night entrepreneur
Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.