“The professional will not tolerate disorder… He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.”

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn’t just skills like computer technology. It’s the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.

Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are… That we actually have the guts, the perserverance, the capacity… because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know.

Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.

Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

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.

Resistance is greatest just before the finish line.

The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.

The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.

The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.

Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.

Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within.

We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

I’m way flashier on Instagram and Snapchat because I feel like that’s what people want to see, and that’s I’ve always done, so I’m not going to stop. People want to see my cars and my purses. People love fashion. But that’s so not me.

With big folks, either people think you look mean or it’s more of a jolly Santa Claus, ‘Oh, he’s just a pudgy little teddy bear pillow.’

How you dress on the outside, it represents your soul.

People flash back to pictures of me when I was 12 and say ‘Kylie’s so different,’ but how can I look the same from 12 -18?

In South Africa, they think we’re pygmies!

I am a strong woman with or without this other person, with or without this job, and with or without these tight pants.

Most of us are wiser than we may appear to be. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice.