Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking your...
Rooster was a bad slave. He had no use for anyone, not even the gods. Not that he was angry at the gods, like some I'd met. He just dismissed them entirely. There were no gods, and that was that.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterpris...
Our very existence makes them abominate us, for it calls their own wives and daughters to aspire to freedom.
Many artists are addicts, and vice versa. Many are artists in one breath and addicts in another. What's the difference? The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.
Let us be, then, warriors of the heart, and enlist in our inner cause the virtues we have acquired through blood and sweat in the sphere of conflict—courage, patience, selflessness, loyalty, fidelity,...
Jewish despair arises from want and can be cured by surfeit. Give a penniless Jew fifty quid and he perks right up. Irish despair is different. Nothing relieves Irish despair. The Irishman’s complaint...
If the upper realm is, as Plato suggested, the sphere of perfect love, truth, justice, and beauty, then the artist seeks to call down the magic of this world and to create, by dint of labor and luck,...
I once worked as a writer for a big New York ad agency. Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Af...
Here's another test. Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it? If
He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality.
He is prepared, each day, to confront his own self-sabotage.
Habit will be your champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle.’ They
Fear conquers fear. This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear: that of dishonor. Of exclusion from the pack.
Don’t prepare. Begin.
Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.
Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work.
Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.
Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Because a warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the safety of the whole line.