“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.”

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.

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.

We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.

Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?

It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.

It’s one thing to lie to ourselves. It’s another thing to believe it.

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.

Don’t prepare. Begin. Our enemy is not lack of preparation. The enemy is resistance, our chattering brain producing excuses. Start before you are ready.

We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.

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.