Steven Pressfield Quotes

I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.

Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, either through fantasy or oblivion, really has been pretty much explored in rock and roll. At least in the western version of rock n' roll.

Everything I do is somehow rooted in humanity. It's always about people; it's always about ego. It's always about desperation. It's quite existential. You know, 'Am I leading a good life?' That might be because I'm an atheist, and I think this is all we've got, so you better be nice. And have fun.

If I lose touch with that... the reason why I act... then I'll leave it all. I don't do it for fame or money.

I don't want to do things to do things. I want them all to make sense to me.

O your life, your lonely lifeWhat have you ever done with it,And done with the great gift of consciousness?What will you ever do before Death's knifeProvides the answer ultimate and appropriate?As I for my part felt in my heart as one who falls,Falls in a parachute, falls endlessly, and feels the vastDraft of the abyss sucking him down and down,An endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown:This is the way the night passes by, thisIs the overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable abyss.

It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Let's say that life is this square of the sidewalk. We are born at this crack and we die at that crack. Now we find ourselves somewhere inside the square and in the process of walking outside of it. Suddenly, we realize our time in here is fleeting. Is our quick experience here pointless? Does anything we say or do in here really matter? Have we done anything important? Have we been happy? Have we made the most of these precious few footsteps?

Sex is such a personal thing - why do we insist on sharing it with another person?

-Why does a man live? -In order to think about it.

If life has no meaning, why don't we create a meaning for it?

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I do and how it fits into the scheme of things. I won't do something just because it's funny.

They pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.

I have to have a meaning in my life. If I roam around without some meaning in my life, I'm in deep and serious trouble. I can't, I just can't exist.

I finally did not understand if we are living to survive or we are living to die!

Not being able to find meaning can be just as powerful as finding meaning.

I am continually trying to find meaning in the world. If we cannot find some ultimate significance or value in our lives, we fall very easily into despair.

My whole life is driven by love. It always has been. It's never been driven by material things - which are just benefits of doing something I loved.

He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die.

Everybody has to know where they're coming from, what they're doing, why they're doing it, who they are. These are essentials.

And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea.

You can never be happy until you understand why you're doing what you're doing.

I don't know," I said. "Maybe you're right, and all that stuff I think I missed is overrated. Why should I even bother? What's the point really?" He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do." He moved down to start bagging while I just stood there, letting this sink in. Just something you have to do. No excuse or rationale necessary. I kind of like that.

You have to know what is right for you and go after it regardless of what others say.