Literary Birthday – 1 September – Steven Pressfield

Happy Birthday, Steven Pressfield, born on 1 September 1943.

Steven Pressfield Quotes

1. Once you finish—even one time, even on a project that ultimately fails—you will never have trouble finishing again. (Writing Wednesdays)
2. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. (The War of Art)
3. The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. (The War of Art)
4. I’ve seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It’s work, you gotta work, do the freakin’ work. That’s why you’re gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you. (The agent in The Knowledge)
5. And I’ll tell you something else. Appreciate these days. These days when you’re broke and struggling, they’re the best days of your life. You’re gonna break through, my boy, and when you do, you’ll look back on this time and think this is when I was really an artist, when everything was pure and I had nothing but the dream and the work. Enjoy it now. Pay attention. These are the good days. Be grateful for them. (The agent in The Knowledge)
6. We can’t control the level of talent we’ve been given. We have no control over the nature of our gift. What we can control is our self-motivation, our self-discipline, our self-validation, and our self-reinforcement. (Website)
7. We can control how hard and how smart we work. (Website)
8. I know this idea is miles out of the mainstream. I know it’s a hundred-to-one shot to find a publisher. I don’t care. I LOVE this story. I believe in it. I’m going forward and even if nobody buys it but my mother and my cat, I don’t care. (Writing Wednesdays)
9. I’m working on a new novel right now. I’m asking myself, as I wrestle with its structure and concept, “What’s the Understory? Where does it play out? Is it happening on the landscape of the soul?” (Writing Wednesdays)
10. Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. (The War of Art)

Steven Pressfield is an American author of historical fiction, military fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays. His works include his 1995 novel The Legend of Bagger Vance and 2002 non-fiction book The War of Art. His historical fiction includes Gates of Fire, Tides of War, and The Arcadian. Gates of Fire is on the required reading list at West Point and the the recommended reading list of the Joint Chiefs. In 2012, Pressfield launched the publishing house Black Irish Books with his agent Shawn Coyne. Follow him on Instagram.

Source for photograph: Author’s Website

by Amanda Patterson
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