“I am a person who works well under pressure. In fact, I work so well under pressure that at times, I will procrastinate in order to create this pressure.”

Source: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (1987), p. 18.

Variant: Courage is grace under pressure.

On World T20, "World T20: Joe Root challenges England squad to keep their cool in India" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/14/world-t20-england-india-mumbai, March 14, 2016. Steve Smith

Hemingway's famous phrase in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (20 April 1926), published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker. In the letter, he wrote that he was "not referring to guts but to something else." The phrase was later used by Dorothy Parker in a profile of Hemingway, "The Artist's Reward," in the New Yorker (30 November 1929)

http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2017/07/hemingways-grace-under-pressure.html

To Leon Goldensohn, after being asked if he felt any resentment toward Hitler (15 March 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)
Context: There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.

Looking For a Job
The Devil You Know (2006)

Chelsea FC, Doctorate Honoris Causa degree award (23 March 2009)