The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

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 most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.

The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.

We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.

The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.

Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you, ” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.

As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion.

You and me, " I said, "we both got the same kind of hurt inside us."She nodded, and suddenly, just like that, I knew I could trust her with my life.

Be so good they can’t ignore you.

[W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.]

The unluckiest insolvent in the world is the man whose expenditure is too great for his income of ideas.

If you can make a woman laugh you can do anything with her.

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

Movies aren't just supposed to be a representation of reality. They're supposed to be an art.

I am worthy of being read. I mean, one has to be convinced of one's genius.

Inside the Bible's pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible.