Don't wait for someone else to validate you. Validate yourself.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

Cousin, the days of gods and heroes are over." "Not to me. Not to them.

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

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

The more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw, was the victory you Spartans had gained over yourselves. That was the glue. It was what you had learned and it made me stay, to learn it too.