The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.

You are a writer when you tell yourself you are. No one else's opinion matters. Screw them. You are when you say you are.

Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again.

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.

You have never tasted freedom, friend, or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.

I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.