To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
Interpretation
Creating art should be driven by passion and love, not for profit or external validation.
This quote by Steven Pressfield suggests that true artistry comes from a place of genuine affection for the craft, and when art is created solely for commercial gain or external approval, it loses its integrity and becomes something akin to prostitution. The implication is that the purity of art is compromised when it is done for reasons other than love and passion.
In practice
During a speech at an art gallery, to emphasize the importance of passion in creativity.
Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life.
The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen... Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.
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.
It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
When creative people do their best work, they're hardly ever in charge, they're just sort of rolling along with their eyes shut yelling wheee.
The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.
That’s one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing’s real, it just lives. All the attendant hoopla about it, the success over it or the critical rejection—none of that really matters. In the end, the thing will survive or not on its own merits. Not that immortality via art is any big deal. Truffaut died, and we all felt awful about it, and there were the appropriate eulogies, and his wonderful films live on. But it’s not much help to Truffaut.
... The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz....you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player.
Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We've lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!
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