How to Sucessfully be an ARTIST (not to be confused with "becoming a sucessfull artist")

First, you must make your Bargain with FATE.

- I will cherish not material security but will squander it all in the search for wisdom. Furthermore, I will only lie in the service of truth.

Then you must get the most dead-end job you can find, one that does not require intelligence, because you will need to deploy that elsewhere.

You must put yourself through an informal course of learning everything there is to learn.

This is not to be confused with learning everything you need to know. You could easily go to college for that.

This will take the rest of eternity.

So sooner you start out, the sooner you'll come home, as the mother said to the son going to war.

Alec MacGarry (que é mais ou menos a mesma coisa que Eddie Campbell) em Alec: How to be an Artist.