Steven Pressfield Quotes

How often have I actually discovered in myself that enthusiasm raises the artist above himself, how in an ordinary mood one would not have been able to accomplish many of the things for which enthusiasm lends one everything, energy, fire.

I love the passion you go through while you're creating.

Great art can only be created out of love.

We make pictures. At the end of the day, we create something potentially significant that did not exist at the beginning of the day. We go forward, despite the uncertainty. Because this is an act of love and passion, which defies reason and prudence.

When I make a picture, I make love.

Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world.

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

Creation is a drug I can't do without.

When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I'm just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I'll die. But, it really is about that shared experience with people. I'm from theater, and that's really what theater feels like.

I like being surrounded by all the stuff that makes me feel creative and inspires me.

Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel.

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.

What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?

Being an artist is celebrating life.

What I say to an artist is, 'When you can't paint - paint.

Any artist is an instrument-and that's exactly why you can't do it all the time. You can only do it when it's happening, when it's coming through. No matter how much you may want to do it, if it's not happening then it's simply not happening.

Find the passion. It takes great passion and great energy to do anything creative. I would go so far as to say you can't do it without that passion.

Another thing about creation is that every day it is like it gave birth, and it's always kind of an innocent and refreshing. So it's always virginal to me, and it's always a surprise. ... Each piece seems to have a life of its own. Every little piece or every big piece that I make becomes a very living thing to me, very living. I could make a million pieces; the next piece gives me a whole new thing. It is a new center. Life is total at that particular time. And that's why it's right. That reaffirms my life.

For we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.

Music business is not for everyone. But if you have it in you, you have that passion, if you have that energy in you that you really want to make something creative and make something that's going to impact the world, then go for it, do it and don't let anybody tell you no.

Creativity means enjoying any work as meditation; doing any work with deep love.

Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.

As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new and keep it exciting.

Your life is a work of art, and in the end, the underlying theme of great art is bravery and hope and love.

Herman Melville said that artists have to take a dive and either you hit your head on a rock and you split your skull and you die … or that blow to the head is so inspiring that you come back and do the best work that you ever did. BUT you have to take the dive and you do not know what the results will be.