“A cavalryman’s horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.”

Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.

Ignorance and arrogance are the artist’s and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.”

The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.

Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.

What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead.

The amateur tweets. The pro works.

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius’s shadow is Resistance.

I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.

This man has conquered the world! What have you done?” The philosopher replied without an instant’s hesitation, “I have conquered the need to conquer the world.

In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline.

The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.

The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He’s petrified.

Figure out what scares you the most and do that first.

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.

The more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.

I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

Man comes not from an egg but from an animalcule that is found in male sperm.

I have often endeavoured to view the circulation of the blood in terrestrial animals, but without success, by reason that no parts of their bodies were sufficiently transparent.

A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.

I bought a box of animal crackers, but there was nothing inside. They’d eaten each other.

Stones grow, plants grow, and live, animals grow live and feel.

A bird in The Strand is worth two in Shepherds Bush.