Steven Pressfield Quotes

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

You either have an imaginative mind or you don't. All of my writing is God-given. I don't write my stories - they write themselves.

Creativity is a spiritual issue.

So much of creativity is the feeling that you're either getting a gift from some other dimension or some other part of yourself.

If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?

That's the beauty of creativity. It comes from the ether. I like to think, sometimes, it's like I haven't written it, it's more like I just reached up and grabbed it from somewhere. That song, 'Song of the Red Rock Mountain,' is one of them. I recorded it and thought, 'Where did that come from?'

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

Creativity itself is divine. Creativity itself is godliness.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

The ideas choose me, not the other way around.

Creativity gives new forms, new patterns, new ideas, new art forms. And we don't know where creativity comes from. Is it inspired from above? Welling up from below? Picked up from the air? What? Creativity is a mystery wherever you encounter it.

Ideas are the old-age of art. Artists have to keep young; they must not think too much - thought is death, while art is life. Such was Emile's viewpoint.

As much as I love performing, nothing juices me up creatively like being in my own studio for an extended period. Songs, ideas, even paintings are pouring out of me. My inspiration and usual subject matter: life.

I was just infused with ideas and I would dream about it and wake up and go, "Oh, I have another idea about Walter White." It was so well written. And it just got into my soul.

When you start to engage with your creative processes, it shakes up all your impulses, and they all kind of inform one another.

Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.

It is my experience both as an artist and as a teacher that when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance. It is a little like opening the gate at the top of a field irrigation system. Once we remove the blocks, the flow moves in.

I’ve never intended to make religious records or records that preach some kind of point of view... If you’re involved with imagination and the creative process, it’s not such a difficult thing to believe in a god. But I’m not involved in any religions.

Creativity is always from the beyond.

The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say 'thank you.'

Creativity is an energy. It's a precious energy, and it's something to be protected. A lot of people take for granted that they're a creative person, but I know from experience, feeling it in myself, it is a magic; it is an energy. And it can't be taken for granted.

While drawing, I discover what I really want to say.