Quotes from Steven Pressfield

If you're are paralyzed with fear it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

The opposite of fear, Dienekes said, is love.

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.

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.

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.

To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.

she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.

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.