Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

— Steven Pressfield

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

— Steven Pressfield

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

— Steven Pressfield

Start before you're ready.

— Steven Pressfield

Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart.

— Steven Pressfield

Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lycurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich land of ours would bestow upon us if we wished, and instead to enroll ourselves in the academy of discipline and sacrifice. Guided by these laws, our fathers for twenty generations have breathed the blessed air of freedom and have paid the bill in full when it was presented. We, their sons, can do no less.

— Steven Pressfield

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.

— Steven Pressfield

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.

— Steven Pressfield

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

— Steven Pressfield

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable.

— Steven Pressfield