Skip to content

Steven Pressfield Quote on Creative Work and How To Overcome The Resistance To Express It

    “Are you a born writer?  Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.  Do it or don’t do it.  It may help to think of it this way.  If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself.  You hurt your children.  You hurt me.  You hurt the planet.  You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.  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.”

    Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

    Beyond the Quote (189/365)

    Don’t think that just because I write every day that it’s easy for me. Writing is always hard. Just like sprinting is always hard. Neither ever gets easier—you just get better. Just today, for example, I sat down to write and noticed—really felt—the potency of the resistance that I had to overcome in order to begin. Here’s what the start to my writing looked like:

    Read More »Steven Pressfield Quote on Creative Work and How To Overcome The Resistance To Express It

      “We want to learn to see the world like an artist: While other people are oblivious to what surrounds them, the artist really sees.  Their mind, fully engaged, notices the way a bird flies or the way a stranger holds their fork or a mother looks at her child.  They have no thoughts of the morrow.  All they are thinking about is how to capture and communicate their experience.  An artist is present.  And from this stillness comes brilliance.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 28)

        “Your ultimate leverage is your craft.  Stop taking meetings, stop networking, stop trying to cut corners, and get better at what you do.  As you get better, your craft will be your leverage, and opportunities will find you.  Devote more time to your craft and become irreplaceable.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 241)

        Osho Quote on Meaning and How It Arises

          “When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises – because the poet is not alone; he has created something. When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut off from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning.”

          Osho, The Book of Understanding

          Beyond the Quote (85/365)

          Isolated might feel like the physical reality, but it doesn’t have to be the emotional state.  Isolated might make the feeling of meaninglessness arise, but meaning extends beyond just physical connection.  Think about the power of creation.  Creation is the act of giving birth to something that otherwise would not have never existed.  Before creation there is just you.  And for as long as you continue to remain in isolation physically, mentally, and emotionally—no meaning will arise.  How could it?

          Read More »Osho Quote on Meaning and How It Arises

          Stephen Cope Quote on Engaging With Life Rather Than Retreating—On Doing What’s Meaningful Rather Than Fun

            “At the end of life, most of us will find that we have felt most filled up by the challenges and successful struggles for mastery, creativity, and full expression of our dharma in the world.  Fulfillment happens not in retreat from the world, but in advance – and profound engagement.”

            Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life

            Beyond the Quote (64/365)

            After receiving a thunderous round of applause for a speech he gave, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson was asked if he was having fun giving speeches and talking about important intellectual topics.  When he replied, “No,” I was caught off guard.  I couldn’t understand how he could so eloquently CRUSH an hour and a half long speech, do it in a way that was so well received by the audience, laugh and joke throughout, and admit that he didn’t have fun while doing it?

            Read More »Stephen Cope Quote on Engaging With Life Rather Than Retreating—On Doing What’s Meaningful Rather Than Fun

            Matt Damon Quote on Taking Action Rather Than Sitting Around Thinking You’re “Too Cool”

              “It was like, ‘Why are we sitting here?  Let’s make our own movie.’  And if people come to see it, they come; and if they don’t, they don’t.  Either way it beats sitting here going crazy.  When you have so much energy and so much passion and no outlet for it and nobody cares, it’s just the worst feeling… This whole ‘I’m too cool to care’ thing… is so weak and stupid and played out, and it just brings everybody down.  You shouldn’t be too cool to care, for Christ’s sake.  You should be full of vim and vigor, and trying to do everything you can to make a change.”

              Matt Damon

              Beyond the Quote (48/365)

              Regardless of what gets you there, when the end conclusion is not caring, then all of the life that comes from caring dissolves.  Caring is exactly what drives us to listen, to pay attention, to take actions, to go above and beyond, and to think and reflect—essentially, when we don’t care, we’re choosing not to interact with the world (or at least that aspect of it).

              Read More »Matt Damon Quote on Taking Action Rather Than Sitting Around Thinking You’re “Too Cool”

              Anne Lamott Quote on Writing Really Poorly Before You Ever Write Anything Good

                “People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts… For me and most other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. If fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

                Anne Lamott

                Beyond the Quote (43/365)

                For all of you who are intimidated by the dreaded blank page and have insecurities and self-doubts about writing (or creating in general), let me reassure you: we ALL start out with really, really shitty first drafts.  Not even the best writers in the world (the ones who you envision typing out those perfect, fully formed passages as fast as a court reporters can type) write their final copy on their first try.  It just doesn’t happen.  So, drop the expectation that you’ll be able to do that yourself (sorry not sorry)!

                Read More »Anne Lamott Quote on Writing Really Poorly Before You Ever Write Anything Good

                Jonas Mekas Quote on Choosing Art and Beauty Against Ugliness and Horrors

                  “I choose art and beauty, vague as those terms are, against ugliness and horrors in which we live today.  For somebody to look at a flower or listen to music does something to one, has a positive effect, and being surrounded by ugliness and horror does something negative.  So I feel my duty not to betray those poets, scientists, saints, singers, troubadours of the past centuries who did everything that humanity would become more beautiful.”

                  Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 45)

                  Beyond the Quote (20/365)

                  If it bleeds it leads.  If you haven’t heard this expression before, it’s sort of the unannounced, unofficial but predominantly popular strategy for many media outlets that represents the idea of using fear and despondency to keep viewers tuned in, listening, and coming back to them for more.  It’s popular because it works and because it works it helps media companies sell more advertisements and improve their bottom-line.

                  Read More »Jonas Mekas Quote on Choosing Art and Beauty Against Ugliness and Horrors

                  Bernard Malamud Quote on Writing—There’s No Secret Practice

                    “There’s no one way [to write] — there’s too much drivel about this subject.  You’re who you are, not Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe.  You write by sitting down and writing.  There’s no particular time or place — you suit yourself, your nature.  How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter.  If he or she is not disciplined, no sympathetic magic will help.  The trick is to make time — not steal it — and produce the fiction.  If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track.  Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way.  The real mystery to crack is you.”

                    Bernard Malamud, via Daily Rituals

                    Beyond the Quote (16/365)

                    If Dwayne Johnson AND Jocko Willink both wake up at 4am to get their workouts done, given how wildly busy and in shape they both are, then that must be the best time to wake up and workout, right?  To answer that from personal experience, no.  I have tried to build that idea into my routine several times and have failed awfully each and every time.  I experienced so much misery and resistance that I felt like even if I mustered together ALL of my willpower from a day, it wouldn’t be enough to get me through one 4am workout—let alone a lifetime of them.  So, what gave?

                    Read More »Bernard Malamud Quote on Writing—There’s No Secret Practice

                      “Whatever it is for you, our lives were meant to be spent making our contribution to the world, not merely consuming the world that others create.” ~ James Clear, Blog

                        “Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.” ~ Robert Fulghum

                          “Innovation doesn’t happen because there’s some person who’s in some great circumstance and everything is going well and they get on a roll and they make something for the world.  Innovation happens—art happens—because of suffering.” ~ Claire Wineland, Klick MUSE New York

                            “Understand: to create a meaningful work of art or to make a discovery or invention requires great discipline, self-control, and emotional stability.  It requires mastering the forms of your field.  Drugs and madness only destroy such powers.  Do not fall for the romantic myths and clichés that abound in culture about creativity—offering us the excuse or panacea that such powers can come cheaply.  When you look at the exceptionally creative work of Masters, you must not ignore the years of practice, the endless routines, the hours of doubt, and the tenacious overcoming of obstacles these people endured.  Creative energy is the fruit of such efforts and nothing else.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery

                              “Your task as a creative thinker is to actively explore the unconscious and contradictory parts of your personality, and to examine similar contradictions and tensions in the world at large.  Expressing these tensions within your work in any medium will create a powerful effect on others, making them sense unconscious truths or feelings that have been obscured or repressed.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery