Quotes from Steven Pressfield

A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.

We don't tell ourselves, I'm never going to write my symphony. Instead we say, I am going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.

The ultimate source of creativity, he argues, is divine.

The field is leveled only in heaven.

Our guns do not strip the foe of life with surgical strokes. They take them in a holocaust.

The humanist believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God. This is why he values human life so highly. In his view, things do progress, life does evolve; each individual has value, at least potentially, in advancing this cause.

If we can't finish, all our work is for nothing.

I experienced it as a compulsion to self-destruct. I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more different ways I'd find to screw it up.

When fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age.

We have the right to our labor but not to the fruit of our labor.

Act, Junah, but act without attachment, as the earth does. As I do. The rain falls, with no thought of watering the land. The clouds roll, not seeking to bring shade. They simply do. And we must too.

The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment.