Quotes From “The War of Art” pt.1
At one point last year, I was hearing about theWarofArt constantly. On a couple occasions, I saw it on 2017 must-read lists for creatives.
Then, one day I was in the doctor’s office and saw a woman reading it. She told me I should too. “It’s good. And the chapters are short, so it’s really easy to get through so you can read it pretty quickly,” she said.
I ordered it several days later. But it actually took me until now, months later, to get through it.
Better late than never, some say.
In theWarofArt, Steven Pressfield writes about being an artist and the battles we face as creators. He also offers candid words about succumbing to those battles and about succeeding– or not.
Here’s some insight Pressfield shares on resistance:
“If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.”
“Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction…Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine.”
“How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed turmors and neuroses, succumbed to pain killers, gossip, and compulsive cell phone use simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?”
“Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren’t diseases, they’re marketing ploys. Doctors didn’t discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did.”
“Creating soap opera in our lives is a sympton of Resistance.”
“…we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.”
“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t… It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.”
“To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stuns us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.”
“[Resistance] will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole… If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
