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We’re all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidentify with our jobs 8 ) We master the technique of our jobs 9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs 10) We receive praise or blame in the real world ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#professional #work #writing #art

Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and we can accomplish this only by the most vigilant exercise of choice, but in a world that changes more swiftly that we can perceive there is always the danger that our powers of selection will be mistaken and that the vision we serve will come to nothing. ↗

— John Cheever

#art

It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says. ↗

— Robert M. Pirsig

#great-minds #life #madmen #purpose-of-life #rationality

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. [...] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#authorship #truth #writing #art

O my God, since thou art with me, and i must now, in obedience to thy commands, apply my mind to these outward things, i beseech thee to grant me the grace to continue in thy presence; and to this end do thou prosper me with thy assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my affections." (Bro. Lawrence implored His grace and offered to Him all his actions). ↗

— Brother Lawrence

#art

I now understood the secret of music and knew what makes it so infinitely superior to all the other arts: its incorporeality. Once it has left an instrument it becomes its own master, a free and independent creature of sound, weightless, incorporeal and perfectly in tune with the universe. ↗

— Walter Moers

#the-city-of-dreaming-books #walter-moers #art

He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#art

The best of all lost arts is honesty ↗

— Mark Twain

#honesty #integerity #purity-of-heart #art

A gentleman doesn't have to flex to know that he is strong. ↗

— Shay Dawkins

#art

A career must be husbanded. Care must be taken. Everyday must bring some small bit of progress. How would an artist with any self-worth act? Act that way. ↗

— Julia Cameron

#profession #art