Julia Cameron - The Artist's Way (1992)

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

Julia Cameron
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.

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

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

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

Julia Cameron
In order to thrive as artists we need to be available to the universal flow. When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the larger gifts as well.

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

Julia Cameron
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.

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

Julia Cameron
Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing you invented, creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing you must invent.

Julia Cameron
Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.

Julia Cameron
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.

Julia Cameron
The truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

Julia Cameron
Nothing dies harder than a bad idea. And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art.

Julia Cameron
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.

Julia Cameron
Your mood doesn't really matter. Some of the best creative work gets done on the days when you feel that everything you're doing is just plain junk.

Julia Cameron
Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission. The admitting is often very difficult.

Julia Cameron
It is my experience both as an artist and as a teacher that when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance. It is a little like opening the gate at the top of a field irrigation system. Once we remove the blocks, the flow moves in.

Julia Cameron
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.

Julia Cameron
Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing.

Julia Cameron
There is no such thing as being done with an artistic life. Frustrations and rewards exist at all levels on the path.

Julia Cameron
Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.

Julia Cameron
But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?" Yes... the same age you will be if you don't.

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

Julia Cameron
In a sense, as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art.

Julia Cameron
As we lose our vagueness about ourself, our values, our life situation, we become available to the moment. It is there, in the particular, that we contact the creative self. Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression.

Julia Cameron
Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control.

Julia Cameron
No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.

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

Julia Cameron
Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

Julia Cameron