Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfieldis an American author, of historical fiction and non-fiction, and screenplays...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
wall mistake three
The problem I've always discovered in my own work when this kind of thing happens when you hit the wall is there's almost always a reason. You've almost always made a mistake in the initial conception of the project. You misapprehended something or you thought something would work and now you're three quarters on the way through and you see that it doesn't work.
serendipity purpose unseen-forces
When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen... Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.
suicide brother heart
When a warrior fights not for himself, but for his brothers, when his most passionately sought goal is neither glory nor his own life's preservation, but to spend his substance for them, his comrades, not to abandon them, not to prove unworthy of them, then his heart truly has achieved contempt for death, and with that he transcends himself and his actions touch the sublime. That is why the true warrior cannot speak of battle save to his brothers who have been there with him. The truth is too holy, too sacred, for words." -Suicide (Gates of Fire)
goodbye nice people
Seeking support from friends and and family is like having people gathered around at your deathbed. It's nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
inspirational work inspiration
Start before you’re ready.
love-you ideas doe
Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?
mother jobs children
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. If we were born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter. If we were born to raise and nurture children, it’s our job to become a mother. If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.
father three littles
One thing I've found in any project is almost universally about three quarters of the way through - or maybe a little father, maybe seventh eighths on the way through - any project will explode.
warrior may selflessness
Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.
art love-is reason
To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
dumb stubborn quitting
Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.
passion guy gold
I love memoirs, particularly obscure ones because the writer is usually a regular guy just telling what happened to him and to his friends. What these tales lack in artfulness they make up for in passion and authenticity. For a writer of fiction, they are solid gold. I have stolen so much from memoirs it's ridiculous.
believe ambition unique
Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred and fundament of our being. 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.
horse should smarter
A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.