A Quote by Julia Cameron

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.

Julia Cameron

Quote Topics

Associate Associations Down Follow Free Go Going Head Job Knowing Knows Later Lay Like Line Listening Melody Note Own Plans Polish Shape Take Wants Will Writing

Quote Author

Julia Cameron
American - Novelist
Born: March 4, 1948

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

Douglas Adams

You can alter movie singing so much because you go into the recording studio and, just technology for recording has gotten so good, you can hold out a note and they can combine a note from take 2 and a note from take 8.

Anne Hathaway

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down... So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. In climbing, take careful note of the difficulties along your way; for as you go up , you can observe them. Coming down, you will no longer see them, but you will know they are there if you have observed them well.

Joseph Jaworski

The only planning I do is about a minute before I play. I desperately try to think of something that will be effective, but I never sit down and work it out note for note.

Eric Clapton

I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.

Brian Setzer

If they think they are doing something new, they ought to do what I do every day - spend at least two hours every day listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and, man, it's all there. If they want to improvise around a theme,which is the essence of jazz, they should learn from the master. He never wastes a note, and he knows where every note is going and when to bring it back. Some of these cats go way out and forget where they began or what they started to do. Bach will clear it up for them.

Coleman Hawkins

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.

Eric Clapton

Some people write a thank you note for a gift, and it's three pages long, and some people write a thank you note, and it's five sentences - that's me. I like to pare away words because I don't want to waste anyone's time.

Bill Callahan

I want you to take note, Commander, that turning in my badge would be like cutting off my arm. But if it comes down to a choice between the job and my marriage, then I lose the arm.

Nora Roberts

I don't much enjoy travelling, but I have always longed to take a slow train to Russia. I'd like to go alone - like writers do - with only a pencil and piece of paper as company. I'd take my sketchbook and note down all the wonderful details of other travellers.

Jane Birkin

As I do not live in an age when rustling black skirts billow about me, and I do not carry an ebony stick to strike the floor in sharp rebuke, as this is denied me, I rap out a sentence in my note book and feel better. If a grandmother wants to put her foot down, the only safe place to do it these days is in a note book.

Florida Scott-Maxwell

She can play my guitar note for note, she likes to stick her tongue down my throat.

Bob Dylan

I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note.

Joe Pass

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.

Enid Bagnold

I know you are reporters and I know this is your job, but, you know, take your note pads, take your pencils down, take your grunt-o-meters down, the fashion police, put everything away and just watch the match, you know, from just the fans' perspective. I seriously think that the quality of the match today was great.