Julia Cameron Quotes

I am breathing in and out. Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.

Faith is almost the bottom line of creativity; it requires a leap of faith any time we undertake a creative endeavor, whether this is going to the easel, or the page, or onto the stage.

There will be many times when we won't look good-to ourselves or anyone else. We need to stop demanding that we do. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

One of our chief needs as creative beings is support. Unfortunately, this can be hard to come by. Ideally, we would be nurtured and encourages first by our nuclear family and then by ever-widening circles of friends, teachers, well-wishers. As young artists, we need and want to be acknowledged for our attempts and efforts as well as for our achievements and triumphs. Unfortunately, many artists never receive this critical early encouragement. As a result, they may not know they are artists at all.

In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well stocked fish pond... If we don't give some attention to upkeep, our well is apt to become depleted, stagnant, or blocked... As artists, we must learn to be self nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them - to re-stock the trout pond, so to speak.

Next to Morning Pages and Artist Dates, the most potent tool for contacting inner guidance and creativity is walking.

An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone. Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed, but we are not encountered. Art lies in the moment of encounter. We meet our truth and we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression.

Setting skepticism aside, even briefly, can make for very interesting explorations. It is not necessary that we change any of our beliefs. It is necessary that we examine them.

As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.

Money cannot fill an empty soul.

In creativity, as in running, you have to start where you are.

The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.

In recovering from our creative blocks, it is necessary to go gently and slowly... These are baby steps. Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.

Did you write today? Then you're a writer today.

In order to have a real relationship with our creativity, we must take the time and care to cultivate it.

What payoff are you getting for remaining stuck at this point in your expansion?

The opposite of Prosperity is not poverty. It is anxiety.

It is not the act of making art that is painful. It is the desire to make something and not acting on it that causes pain....A day when I don't write is less happy. This is not discipline. It is affection, enthusiasm, adventure-any number of other words besides discipline.

In order to thrive as artists we need to be available to the universal flow. When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the larger gifts as well.

While there is no quick fix for instant, pain-free creativity, creative recovery (or discovery) is a teachable, trackable spiritual process. Each of us is complex and highly individual, yet there are common recognizable denominators to the creative recovery process.

The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist.

If we are forever yearning for more time, we are forever discounting what is offered.

Creativity is always a leap of faith. You're faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage.

I surrender my anxiety and my sense of urgency. I allow God to guide me in the pacing of my life. I open my heart to God's timing. I release my deadlines, agendas, and stridency to the gentle yet often swift pacing of God. As I open my heart to God's unfoldings, my heart attains peace. As I relax into God's timing, my heart contains comfort. As I allow God to set the tone and schedule of my days, I find myself in the right time and place, open and available to God's opportunities.

When writing becomes too dominant, it gets leached of its own power. We spend more and more time writing and we have less and less to write about.

Sometimes the dying live more fiercely and wisely than the rest of us. (146)

Left to it's own devices, writing is like weather. It has a drama, a form, a force to it that shapes the day. Just as good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche. There is something very right about simply letting yourself write. And the way to do that is to begin, to begin where you are.

The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch. These are the elements of magic, and magic is the elemental stuff of art. In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do-spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.

Become willing to see the hand of God and accept it as a friend's offer to help you with what you are doing.

Don't try to 'fix' the child's boredom - rather, let the child find his or her inner resources.

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.

It takes constant vigilance not to slip into negativity or simple apathy. It takes courage to believe over any given period of time that we are getting better and not sliding into decline.

Workaholism is an addiction, and like all addictions, it blocks creative energy.

... success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

Some people find it easier to picture the stream of inspiration as being like radio waves of all sorts being broadcast at all times. With practice, we learn to hear the desired frequency on request. We tune in to the frequency we want.

I think of making love and making art as being very parallel. Even the most amateur attempt can be thrilling.

Possibility is far more frightening than impossibility.

When we do what we really love, money will come, the door will open. We feel useful and work as a game that

The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations.

You are your own Promised Land, your own new frontier.

When it was suggested that I write a memoir I said, 'I'm not old enough. I'm not distinguished enough.' But I went home and sat down to write, and the material for the book just came flooding into my hands.

Artists are visionaries. We routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance - often visible to us, but invisible to those around us.

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.

Try approving of yourself just as you are, and spoiling yourself rotten with small kid's pleasures.

You are either losing your mind -- or gaining your soul.

Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.

Creativity makes life useful to us. It also makes us useful to life.

But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?" Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don't.