Julia Cameron Quotes

Possibility is far more frightening than impossibility ...

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

Gently set all ego aside and be a channel for my thinking to come into the world.

Make your own recovery the first priority in your life. ROBIN NORWOOD

I learned, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: "What next?" instead of "Why me?" ... Whenever I am willing to ask "What is necessary next?" I have moved ahead. Whenever I have taken no for a final answer I have stalled and gotten stuck.

We need to bridge our sense of loneliness and disconnection with a sense of community and continuity even if we must manufacture it from our time on the Web and our use of calling cards to connect long distance. We must "log on" somewhere, and if it is only in cyberspace, that is still far better than nowhere at all. (264)

We are meant to midwife dreams for one another. Success occurs in clusters

Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as creator but seldom see "creator" as the literal term for "artist". I am suggesting you take the term "creator" quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities.

Remembering that God is my source, we are in the spiritual position of having an unlimited bank account. Most of us never consider how powerful the creator really is. Instead, we draw limited amounts of the power available to us. We decide how powerful God is for us. We unconsciously set a limit on how much God can give us or help us. We are stingy with ourselves. And if we receive a gift beyond our imagining, we often send it back.

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.

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 - or for that matter, in a homelier way, picking out the right fabric for the kitchen curtains, which is also a creative act.

Life is a spiritual dance and that our unseen partner has steps to teach us if we will allow ourselves to be led. The next time you are restless, remind yourself it is the universe asking 'Shall we dance?

When you feel yourself to be in critical condition, you must treat yourself as gently as you would a sick friend.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

Grab for time to write instead of wait for time.

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

In daily life there is an inner transition I can consciously practice. This is the transition from fear to faith. Faced with ambiguity and uncertainty, I can choose to believe things will work out for the best.

If we lean into what we love instead of soldiering toward what we 'should,' our pace quickens, our energy rises, optimism sets in. What we love is nutritious for us.

Art? You just do it. MARTIN RITT

At root, a pearl is a 'disturbance' a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion ... The pearl's beauty is made as a result of insult ...

You have to muster a certain amount of belief that you're not making a mistake and you're not a fool. And this means you have to have faith.

Without being acknowledged, they are often used as batteries by their families and friends, who feel free to both use their creative energies and disparage them.

My mother set us to an activity and let us be.

I bless the wisdom of my loving heart. Love is a form of listening. I listen with a loving heart. I listen to the love within my heart and I hear the love in the hearts of others.

Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness.

Art is born in attention.

A working artist is a playing artist.

us a place to vent and a place to dream. They are intended for no eyes but our own. Virginia

Creativity is not and never has been sensible.

I think everybody encounters difficulty. It's just more pitched in some people.

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

When I ask for help with my creativity, I get it.

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.

I always start everything with the weather, because the weather is the first thing that I notice when I wake up in the morning.

I do not put in long hours at the keys - or very seldom. Instead, I snatch time. I write in the crannies of my life.

Water seeks its own level and water rises collectively

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

To write is to right things. A path will emerge.

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

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.

We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core.

I learned to just show up at the page and write down what I heard. Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb.

Our moods and insights are transitory. This current is a flow of grace moving us to our right livelihood, companions, destiny.

We talk about self-expression but need to pause and remember that self-expression requires a self to express ...

Choosing to honor the tidal nature of life, I do not push for artificial solutions born of haste and indiscretion. I allow the universe to unfold with divine timing. I attune myself to the tempo of my highest good.

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

We want to set aside time for our creative work, but we feel we should do something else instead. As blocked creatives, we focus not on our responsibilities to ourselves, but on our responsibilities to others. We tend to think such behavior makes us good people. It doesn't. It makes us frustrated people.

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.

When I talk about a writing life, I'm talking about a life in which writing is the dominant response to living.

We have a lot of pressures on children very young. We have ambition. We over-schedule our children. We want them to have soccer lessons and violin lessons ... I think children need to have at least an hour of fun a day.

Technology teaches passivity. Absorbed in our devices - at any age - we are absorbed in someone else's perspective.

I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing.

Today, I take the time to get my friends and acquaintances current on the shifts in my inner life. I communicate clearly and openly. I allow time for people to adjust to the ways in which I have changed. I, too, adjust to the change in others.

I am what I am again: a writer. I have metabolized the injury into art.

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.

When we put the pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about. Before you write about something, somebody says, 'How do you feel?' and you say, 'Oh, I feel okay.' Then you write about it, and you discover you don't feel okay.

Apologies are the art of spiritual housekeeping. They help to put and keep our lives in order.

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.

The Artist's Way is a spiritual journey, a pilrimage home to the self.

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.

The act of making art is both scary and healing. Art brings light to places that have remained dark. Art brings perspective. Making art, at any level, is an act of courage and an expression of faith.

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

If you want to write a novel, it's the Divine mind wanting to express.

Today, I stand firm in my own worthiness. My dignity is solid and enduring. My faith is the rock on which I build my life. I dare to risk and I risk my daring. I am large enough to survive my losses and enjoy my gains.

Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that.

Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.

Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.

Always remember that your Censor's negative opinions are not the truth.

As you move toward a dream, the dream moves toward you.

Adversity is a misperception as all works toward the good.

If we eliminate the word "writer", if we just go back to writing as an act of listening and naming what we hear, some of the rules dissappear. There is an organic shape, a form-coming-into-form that is inherent in the thing we are observing, listening to, and trying to put on the page. It has rules of its own that it will reveal to us if we listen with attention. Shape does not need to be imposed. Shape is a part of what we are listening to. When we just let ourselves write, we get it "right".

I grew up in what you might call a relentlessly creative household. We were given art supplies, music supplies ... Our mother knew enough to get us started and then stand back and not meddle. My parents never said to us, 'Don't you think you'll need something to fall back on?' They acted as though creativity was completely normal.

Live with a quiet expectation of good.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise ... As creative channels, we need to trust the darkness.

I began to pray for help with what I needed and wanted as well as for the knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry it out. Immediately, I felt a heightened sense of spiritual companionship.

I think that I need to learn a few different modalities of change: gradual and grounded like a seed growing and, too, when it is time to leap lest I be left hanging over a chasm clutching frantically to either side. In other words, I may need to listen to guidance about when to edge forward and when to leap forward. What clearly does not serve me is trying to meet every situation with an obdurate set mode.

As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.

It is all too easy as an artist to allow the shape of our career to be dictated to us by others. We can so easily wait to be chosen. Such passivity invites despair. To remain healthy and vital, artists must stay proactive in their own behalf.

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.

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

Artists and intellectuals are not he same animal. This causes a great deal of confusion. Our schools teach educate us intellectually but not artistically. We learn to deconstruct art, not construct it.

All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

Creativity requires activity ... And most of us hate to do something when we can obsess about something else instead.

Allow me to bring you companions worthy of your love.

For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.

Expect the universe to support your dream. It will.

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.

Do not be discouraged by the ways in which you fall short. Every shortcoming is to me an opportunity for your growth.

We must remain ready to ask, open-minded enough to be led, and willing to believe despite our bouts of disbelief. Creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.

The trick is to metabolize pain as energy. Learn, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: "What next?" instead of "Why me?

I believe that the 'dark night of the soul' is a common spiritual experience. I believe, too, that the answer is continued seeking and perseverance. It helps to know that others have endured a loss of faith.

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

At it's essence, art is an alchemical process. Alchemy is a process of transformation.

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.

Making art has taught me that the tiniest smidgen of progress is something to be cherished.

FESTIVITY BREEDS CREATIVITY. RIGIDITY BREEDS DESPAIR

Choice by choice, moment by moment, I build the necklace of my day, stringing together the choices that form artful living.

Fostering our children's creativity, we are fostering our children's spirituality as well.

It's important always to have a sense of wonder.

When we let God be God and work through us, we experience both a sense of serenity and excitement.