“The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.”

Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.

Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional crazy heart.

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.

The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them.

When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.

When we’re living as amateurs, we’re running away from our calling – meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.

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.

In every photographer there was a painter, a true artist, awaiting expression.

I do not seek. I find.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

Being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it’s about you and what you want to be.

The more I become decomposed, the more sick and fragile I am, the more I become an artist.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing.

All my favorite artists and fashion icons and models are from the Nineties. Everybody was just so fearless.