Top 317 Quotes & Sayings by Julia Cameron - Page 4

Artists love other artists. Shadow artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright. Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist-hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.

Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out.

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.

We always do the best we can by the light we have to see by.

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

All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage.

Answered prayers are scary. They imply responsibility. You asked for it. Now that you've got it, what are you going to do? Why else the cautionary phrase Watch out for what you pray for; you might just get it?

Many of us believe that 'real artists' do not experience self-doubt. In truth, artists are people who have learned to live with doubt and do the work anyway.

Pivotal to a happy writing life is a practice of daily personal writing.

Adversity is a misperception as all works toward the good.

Water seeks its own level and water rises collectively

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

Selecting a challenge and meeting it creates a sense of self-empowerment that becomes the ground for further successful challenges.

Making art is an act of faith.

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.

Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can.

Writing is like listening to a melody line in my head. Note by note, it knows where it wants to go. I follow it and lay it down. I can pare it, shape it, and polish it later...My job is to take down the dribs and drabs - to free-associate, if you will, knowing that the associations have their own plans for where we're going with all this.

If you work on your creativity, you deepen your spirituality. And if you work on your spirituality, you deepen your creativity.

Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse. . . Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one

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.

Art is born in attention.

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

Fatigue can make it hard to have faith. Too much busyness can make it hard to have faith. Too much of too little solitude can impact faith. For that matter, so can a bout of hunger or overwork, anything carried to an extreme. Faith thrives on routine. Look at any monastery and you will see that. Faith keeps on keeping on.

The creator made us creative. Our creativity is our gift from God. Our use of it is our gift to God. Accepting this bargain is the beginning of true self-acceptance.

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.

It is the use of creativity which heals the creative wound.

We are not accustomed to thinking that God's will for us and our own inner dreams can coincide.

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

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

If you think of the universe as a vast electrical sea in which you are immersed and from which you are formed, opening to your creativity changes you from something bobbing in that sea to a more fully functioning, more conscious, more cooperative part of that ecosystem.

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

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.

Writing just for the hell of it is heaven.

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.

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

Agendas tend to drain the life out of relationships.

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.

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.

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

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

You are on the look out for experience, strength, and hope. You want to hear from the horse's mouth exactly how disappointments have been survived. It helps to know that the greats have had hard times too and that your own hard times merely make you part of the club.

I honor the wisdom of life. I learn from life in all its forms. The tree teaches me. The sparrow and the wren sing my song. I am open to the lessons Life brings me from the earth. I learn from the wind, from the sun, from the small flowers, and from the stars. I walk without arrogance. I learn from all I encounter. I open my mind and heart to the guidance and love that come to me from the natural world.

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.

Stop telling yourself that dreams don't matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.

When you are feeling too dull and too domesticated get on a horse, sit tall in the saddle, and for a moment live in a world that feels like risk and adventure.

Life is what we make of it. Whether we conceive of an inner god force or an other, outer God, doesn't matter. Relying on that force does.

Creativity is a spiritual issue.

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

Far from making me feel different and special, my [spiritual] experiences made me feel the same, ordinary, and interconnected. If I felt more spiritual, everyone else felt more spiritual as well. (276)

What would a nontoxic god think of your creative goals? Might such a god really exist?

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

Writing-and this is the big secret-wants to be written. Writing loves a writer the way God loves a true devotee. Writing will fill your heart if you let it. It will fill your pages and help to fill your life.

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 opposite of Prosperity is not poverty. It is anxiety.

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)

Doubt comes to the door in darkness, pretending to be alone and in need of your compassionate ear. But if you let him in, he'll bring his friends.

We waste a lot of time and a lot of talent trying to write for the common reader, whom we will never meet. Instead we should be writing for our ideal reader.

We all have time to write. We have time to write the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.

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.

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