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

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.

Put your ass where your heart wants to be.

It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.

The last thing we want is to remain as we are.

Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experince it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential… Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.

Our greatest battle is to become ourselves, in the face of adversity.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

The opposite of fear is love – love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.

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.

Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian.

Your success and happiness lie in you.

Sometimes when you’re young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you’re living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.

The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Assimilation is much more joyful than conformity,

For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment’s human suffering.