Top 317 Quotes & Sayings by Julia Cameron - Page 3

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.

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

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

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.

There is not one pink flower, or even fifty pink flowers, but hundreds. Snowflakes, of course, are the ultimate exercise in sheer creative glee. No two alike. This creator looks suspiciously like someone who just might send us support for our creative ventures.

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

We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not.

People frequently believe the creative life is grounded in fantasy. The more difficult truth is that creativity is grounded in reality, in the particular, the focused, the well observed or specifically imagined.

We have this idea that we need to be in the mood to write. We don't.

Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance.

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.

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

As children we hoard and gloat over words. Words give ownership: we name our world and we claim it...Children trust the power of words.

Any little bit of experimenting in self-nurturance is very frightening for most of us.

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.

Creativity is the life force that Dylan Thomas called 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.

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

There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-respect.

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

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

The doing of something productive regardless of the outcome is an act of faith. The doing of a small something when a large something is too much for us is perhaps especially an act of faith. Faith means going forward by whatever means we can.

Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness... bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.

Money cannot fill an empty soul.

Love is the greatest medicine. I ask to be healing medicine for others. I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and to love others as they wish to be loved. I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and open to my being loved as I wish to be loved.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do.

By listening to the creator within, we are led to our right path.

Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.

Do not call procrastination laziness. Call it fear.

Serious art is born from serious play.

It's impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

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.

My heart holds the world in tender awe.

Take a small step in the direction of a dream and watch the synchronous doors flying open

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

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.

We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative energy of the universe.

Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

Creativity is not and never has been sensible.

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

Doing work points the way to new and better work to be done.

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

Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention...the capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

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 don't often talk about the fact that writing is all about rhythm. When you get too up in your head, you can lose a lot of your writing. Sometimes what a writer really needs to do is go dancing.

The reward for attention is always healing.

Soul is not about function; it's about beauty, form, and memory.

An artist paints, dances, draws, writes, designs, or acts at the expanding edge of consciousness. We press into the unknown rather than the known. This makes life lovely and lively.

A working artist is a playing artist.

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

Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process. Enthusiasm - from the Greek, filled with God - is an ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life itself.

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