Everything is practice.
There is always someone out there getting better than you by training harder than you.
To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally.
All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.
Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.
Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.
If you write a hundred short stories and they’re all bad, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You fail only if you stop writing.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time.’
If you want to move to a new level in your life, you must break through your comfort zone and practice doing things that are not comfortable.
My success is due more to my ability to work continuously on one thing without stopping than to any other single quality.
Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. As a result, a genius is often a talented person who has simply done all of his homework.
I’ve always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation.
Too many people want the appearance of winning rather than the practices and hard work that create a true champion.
Keep working even when no one is watching.
Nothing will train you better as a writer than working on your next book.
A runner doesn’t just show up and win a race. He trains long and hard. Do you just show up every day and hope to win?
Don’t think about it. Do it. Don’t talk about it. Do it.