Julia Cameron Quotes

There is a treadmill quality to workaholism.

Practice being kind to yourself in small, concrete ways. Look at your refrigerator. Are you feeding yourself nicely? Do you have socdks? An extra set of sheets? What about a new house plant? A thermos for the long drive to work? Allow yourself to pitch out some of your ragged clothes. You don't have to keep everything.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

We don't always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think SHOULD. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail...We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.

Art is one of the few careers without a mandatory retirement age.

The essential element in nurturing our creativity lies in nurturing ourselves.

No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.

Creativity is a fact of your spiritual body

As a writer, I find holidays often disturbing, not liberating, in their disruption of tempo, their open-ended time.

Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control.

Art is a spiritual practice. We may not, and need not, do it perfectly.

I am due at the page.

Artistic anorexia & sexual avoidance have the same root fears – fear of intimacy, fear of exposure, fear of failure”.

There is no such thing as being done with an artistic life. Frustrations and rewards exist at all levels on the path.

We are ourselves creations. We are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves. This is the God-force extending itself through us. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using creativity is our gift back to God.

We tend to think being hard on ourselves will make us strong. But it is cherishing ourselves that gives us strength

It hurts like hell when the world won't invest in you. But it's excruciating, almost more than you can bear, when you don't believe and invest in yourself.

Often it is tenacity, not talent, that rules the day.

All of us are far richer than we imagine. None of us possesses a life devoid of magic.

It is important to remember that at first blush, going sane feels just like going crazy.

A career must be husbanded. Care must be taken. Everyday must bring some small bit of progress. How would an artist with any self-worth act? Act that way.

When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature

Creativity is our true nature; blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender green stem.

As an experienced artist, I carry my work like a secret pregnancy. I am always aware of inner life and the need to protect it.

Making art is an act of faith.

What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?

When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good, orderly direction.

If we have plain old ordinary fear then we are within reach of a solution. Fear has been with humankind for millennia and we do know what to do about it-pray about it, talk about it, feel the fear, and do it anyway. Artistic fear, on the other hand, sounds somehow nastier and more virulent, like it just might not yield to ordinary solutions-and yet it does, the moment we become humble enough to try ordinary solutions.

Procrastination is not Laziness", I tell him. "It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.

When we walk, the two halves of our brains converse.

The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all. . . Fear is what blocks an artist. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not finishing. The fear of failure and of success. The fear of beginning at all.

I ask to be made beautiful like the trees are beautiful, each growing according to a unique plan. Lop off a limb and and the tree will accommodate it's loss, still growing and still beautiful. It is my hope to be able to flourish in a similar fashion, taking on the shape and dimensions that is intended for me.

Creativity is God's will for us and should be practiced like any other spiritual practice -a day at a time.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.

The growth of one blesses all. I am commited to grow in love. All that I touch, I leave in love. I move through this world consciously and creatively.

Writing is a combination of being alert to your outer surroundings and alive to your inner reality.

You are asked to keep a ledger - a small notebook will do - of money in and money out. Counting brings clarity, and clarity is one of the first and finest fruits of prosperity.

When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature. All of us love. All of us do it more and more perfectly. The past has brought us both ashes and diamonds. In the present we find the flowers of what we've planted and the seeds of what we are becoming. I plant the seeds of love in my heart. I plant the seeds of love in the hearts of others.

No matter how sophisticated our lives may be we need to think of ourselves as creative children.

The beginner's humility and openness lead to exploration. Exploration leads to accomplishment. All of it begins at the beginning, with the first small and scary step.

A sketch book freezes time. It is an instantaneous form of meditation focusing us on the worth of every passing moment.

A working artist is a playing artist.

All of us contain a divine, expressive spark, a creative candle intended to light our path and that of our fellows.

In a sense, as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

As you explore your inner world, your outer world will come more sharply into focus. As you face your imagined barriers, you will encounter real ones, as well.

Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly, our options widen.

When we seek daily spiritual guidance, we are guided toward the next step forward for our art. Sometimes the step is very small. Sometimes the step is, "Wait. Not now." Sometimes the step is, "Work on something else for a while." When we are open to Divine Guidance, we will receive it. It will come to us as the hunch, the inkling, the itch. It will come to us as timely conversations with others. It will come to us in many ways--but it will come.