1) “Don’t create things to make money; make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work.”
2) “99% of success is just showing up. In fact, most success is just persistence.”
3) ‘You don’t need more time because you already have all the time you will ever get; you need more focus.”
4) “The greatest teaching is called “doing.’”
5) “Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.”
6) “To transcend the influence of your heroes, copy them shamelessly like a student to get them out of your system. That is the way of all matters.”
7) “When you are stuck, sleep on it. Give your subconscious an assignment while you sleep. You’ll have an answer in the morning.”
8) “Most overnight successes – in fact, any significant successes – take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.”
9) “Efficiency is highly overrated; goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.”
10) ”You first have to follow the rules with diligence in order to break them productively.”
11) “Draw to discover what you see. Write to discover what you think.”
12) “Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.”
13) “Most articles and stories are improved significantly if you delete the first page of the manuscript. Start with the action.”
14) “You choose to be lucky by believing that any setbacks are just temporary.”
15) “Try hard to solicit constructive criticism early. You want to hear what’s not working as soon as possible. When it is finished you can’t improve it.”
16) “Make one to throw away. The only way to write a great book is to first write an awful book. ditto for a move, song, piece of furniture, or anything.”
17) “The main reason to produce something every day is that you must throw away a lot of good work to reach the great stuff. To let it all go easily you need to be convinced that there is “more where that came from.” You get that in steady production.”
18) “As long as an idea stays in your head, it is perfect. But perfect things are never real. Immediately put an idea down into words, or in a sketch, or as a cardboard prototype. Now your idea is much closer to reality because it is imperfect.”
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