Quotes from Julia Cameron

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. EMMA GOLDMAN

Owning something also means owning up to something. It means accepting responsibility, which means, literally, responsibility. When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them, we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are rendered conscious. Each day, each life, is a series of choices, and as we use the lens of writing to view our lives, we see our choices.

The trick to finding writing time is to make writing time in the life you've already got.

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic. SUSAN JEFFERS

Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. MEISTER ECKHART

We must actively, consciously, consistently, and creatively nurture our artist selves.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. PABLO PICASSO

Practice being kind to yourself in small, concrete ways.

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. JAMES BALDWIN

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.

The "if-I-had-time" lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born—without the luxury of time.

Jealousy tells us there is room for only one—one poet, one painter, one whatever you dream of being.

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

It is always necessary to acknowledge creative injuries and grieve them. Otherwise, they become creative scar tissue and block your growth.

Today, I release the urgency of outer events. I listen to the inner rhythm of God. I set my pace by divine guidance. The world and its busy agendas do not control my soul.

Timid young artists, adding parental fears to their own, often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets.

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.

It's not the answer that enlightens, but the question. EUGENE IONESCO

Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance. M. C. RICHARDS

Today, I accept divine timing. I allow the pacing of the Universe to be my own. I align myself with the tempo of my life precisely as it is unfolding.

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.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur. LEO TOLSTOY Creative living requires the luxury of time, which we carve out for ourselves—even if it's fifteen minutes for quick morning pages and a ten-minute minibath after work.

We all know how broke-crazy-promiscuous-unreliable artists are. And if they don't have to be, then what's my excuse?

Boredom is just "What's the use?" in disguise. And "What's the use?" is fear, and fear means you are secretly in despair.