Quotes from Emily Carr

Oh I do want that thing, that oneness of movement that will catch the thing up into one movement and sing - harmony of life.

There was neither horizon, cloud, nor sound; of that pink, spread silence even I had become part, belonging as much to sky as to earth.

Go out there into the glory of the woods. See God in every particle of them expressing glory and strength and power, tenderness and protection. Know that they are God expressing God made manifest.

Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.

There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness.

It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw.

I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.

The men resent a woman getting any honour in what they consider is essentially their field. Men painters mostly despise women painters. So I have decided to stop squirming, to throw any honour in with Canada and women.

What a splendid time Woo must have had.

The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.

You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.

I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.

Life's an awfully lonesome affair. You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.

I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.

You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.

Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs.

Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.

You must be absolutely honest and true in the depicting of a totem for meaning is attached to every line. You must be most particular about detail and proportion.

As the woods are the same, the trees standing in their places, the rocks and the earth... they are always different too, as lights and shadows and seasons and moods pass through them.

The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.

It's all the unwordable things one wants to write about, just as it's all the unformable things one wants to paint - essence.

Oh, Spring! I want to go out and feel you and get inspiration. My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.

Trees love to toss and sway they make such happy noises.

You will have to experiment and try things out for yourself and you will not be sure of what you are doing. That's all right, you are feeling your way into the thing.