Quotessence
Home / Authors / Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllResistanceArtistIfsSelfKnowsCallingArtWritingWorldDoeThinkingBelieveFeelsWarWarriorInspirationRealDestinyImportantWant

Famous Steven Pressfield Quotes

“In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful. The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable. 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. The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell." Page 68”

ArtArtistFocusPerseveranceAuthorMarineWriters BlockCreative Block
Book:The War Of Art
Create image

“Artists, writers and people in creative fields are entrepreneurs by necessity. Nobody gives them a paycheck or picks up their medical insurance. The ones who succeed learn to think and act like 'independent operators.' I think people who are technically 'employees' have to think this way as well. The company is not looking out for you.”

PeopleThinkingWayGivingWellsArtistCompanyCreativeFieldsSucceedPicksIndependentEntrepreneurMedicalEmployeePaychecksOperatorsMedical Insurance
Author:Steven Pressfield
Create image

“As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture.”

ArtistCultureRevolutionTyrannyObligationConsumersInternalsSkullsUprisingInsurrectionConsumer Culture
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.”

KnowsWorldArtistTroubleSourceUrgesTolerateHarness
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do. The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away. What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either.”

MenWorldWayHumansTwoStatesPainArtistShareConditionsEssentialsOvercomingAgreeSeparationIsolationGoing AwayBeing HumanSensitivityAddictExileSuspendedTwo Worlds
Book:Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work
Create image

“In the hierarchy, the artist faces outward. Meeting someone new he asks himself, What can this person do for me? How can this person advance my standing? In the hierarchy, the artist looks up and looks down. The one place he can't look is that place he must: within.”

LooksPersonsFacesArtistAsksStandingMeetingsLook UpHierarchyMeeting Someone
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.”

WorldGivingArtArtistActorsAttentionCreativityCreativeSelfishContributionCheatBad AssCreative WorkCreative PersonArtists And CreativitySelfish Acts
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

IfsRealSelfArtistChanceAskingScaredFinding YourselfChances AreInnovatorsCounterfeitReal OnesSelf Confident
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.”

KnowsIdeasRealArtistSecretSightDown AndNotesInsightFavorsEach DayIronDedicationMuseFilingReal ArtistsWannabes
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“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.”

KnowsSelfArtistHellDoubtCallingDespairDietsRejectionIsolationContemptHumiliationRidiculeDurationDiningSelf-doubt
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve.”

KnowsMayArtistCreationHumilityWillingSourceInstrumentsHumbleWarriorAcquireGoddessModestyFacilitateChasteGods And Goddesses
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.”

KnowsWarArtistLove IsKnow HowHellPrideBabySoldierMiserableMarineJetJockeys
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image

“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.”

BelieveBookInspirationArtistI BelieveBornImaginationWrittenWillingMaterialsDisciplineOfficeI Believe InServantMuseImperativesPrevious LifeBooks And Music
Author:Steven Pressfield
Create image

“You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.”

KnowsWorldWarWantedFacesArtistStudyPaintingEasierBeatsHundredMovedSevenResistanceWar Of The WorldsSquaresWorld War IiWorld War IBlankCanvasInheritanceEighteenViennaOverstatement
Book:The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Create image