Julia Cameron Quotes

My discussion with Keith Richards about the creative process led me to believe that there's an invisible presence of a stream of ever-flowing creativity that we overhear-all you have to do is pull up the antenna and dial it in. This presence allows you to maintain your sense of origin and move forward.

An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

My creative life is a constant struggle to achieve a balance between letting things flow in and letting things flow out.

You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It’s a game, right? It’s like being paid for dreaming.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

Is there a spiritual element to creativity? Hell, yes. Our mightiest ally (our indispensable ally) is belief in something we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or feel.

To know what you're going to draw, you have to begin drawing.

I always say that intuition is the number one tool for an artist.

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

The only thing I know for sure about the creative process is it always comes back. Magically. When there are no creative juices and nothing is coming to me - if I wait - it comes!

First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.

If you deny yourself access to the child within because you're too serious, you also block your connection to the divine Light and your feminine self. Every creator who's any good uses their feminine side to create with.. Whether a scientist working on a hunch, a painter working on the interplay of colors, or a musician dealing with the juxtaposition of notes and chords.

The biggest part of painting perhaps is faith, and waiting receptively, content to go any way, not planning or forcing. The fear, though, is laziness. It is so easy to drift and finally be tossed up on the beach, derelict.

Any artist is an instrument-and that's exactly why you can't do it all the time. You can only do it when it's happening, when it's coming through. No matter how much you may want to do it, if it's not happening then it's simply not happening.

I could never make a ballet by wrinkling my brow and concentrating. If you set out deliberately to make a masterpiece, how will you ever get it finished?

I don't think I”m a very good actor. Everything is very tentative and at a certain point you click in and just feel the spirit move you. I can be possessed really well.

The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.

For me, the beauty of the blank page, or empty screen,staring up at nine thirty after two cups of coffee and a deep breath remains unique. The blankness invites scribbling on, mental drawing , and the best feeling I know - apart from the more obvious sensual ones - is the feeling of putting down the first thought and seeing it turn into symbols. Making an idea into an emotion.

So much of creativity is the feeling that you're either getting a gift from some other dimension or some other part of yourself.

Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.

The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say 'thank you.'

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.

I've gone seventy-nine hours without sleep, creating. When that flow is going, it's almost like a high. You don't want it to stop. You don't want to go to sleep for fear of missing something.