Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.

The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.

Is there a spiritual element to creativity? Hell, yes. Our mightiest ally (our indispensable ally) is belief in something we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or feel.

Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.

Picasso painted with passion, Mozart composed with it. A child plays with it all day long. You may think you’ve lost your passion, or that you can’t identify it, or that you have so much of it, it threatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true.