Quotes from Steven Pressfield

Arabs lie. Let me tell you this, Gent, if you don't know it already. We lie for fun, we lie for profit, we lie all the time, and we don't even know why.

Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility.

the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

A Jew asks over and over, "What is fair? What is just? Who is a good man, and why?

COMBATING RESISTANCE Turning Pro It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life. — Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary

There is another telling aspect to a show of naval might. This is its temerity. A fleet carries with it the audacity of its enterprise. The stay-at-home foe is stricken by its sudden apparition. The enemy beholding a navy advancing upon him out of the aether is struck with dread, as Priam himself when Achilles' black ships beached upon the plain of Troy.

Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.

A pro views her work as craft, not art. Not because she believes art is devoid of a mystical dimension. On the contrary. She understands that all creative endeavor is holy, but she doesn't dwell on it. She knows if she thinks about that too much, it will paralyze her. So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

But this is different for me. These are my demons. This is me. This is the shit I do, no matter how hard I try to stop myself.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come, From God who is our home. In

Let the unconscious do its work. Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

To labor in the arts for any other reason than love, is prostitution.