Julia Cameron

What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?

— Julia Cameron power

Love is the substance of all life. Everything is connected in love, absolutely everything.

— Julia Cameron love

When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature.

— Julia Cameron love

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

— Julia Cameron art

Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.

— Julia Cameron action

I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.

— Julia Cameron you

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

— Julia Cameron war

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again.

— Julia Cameron art

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.

— Julia Cameron money

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down.

— Julia Cameron thinking

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 faith

Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.

— Julia Cameron life

All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

— Julia Cameron art

The Right to Write : An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life (Tarcher, 1998; )

— Julia Cameron life

For most of us, the seductive and unstated part of "if I had enough time" is the unstated sentence "to hear myself think." In other words, we imagine that if we had time we would quiet our more shallow selves and listen to a deeper flow of inspiration. Again, this is a myth that lets us off the hook— if I wait for enough time to listen, I don't have to listen now, I don't have to take responsibility for what is trying to bubble up today.

— Julia Cameron inspiration

Blessings: Prayers and Declarations for a Heartful Life (Tarcher, 1998; )

— Julia Cameron art

Life is a creative endeavor. It is active, not passive. We are the yeast that leavens our lives into rich, fully baked loaves. When we experience our lives as flat and lackluster, it is our consciousness that is at fault. We hold the inner key that turns our lives from thankless to fruitful. That key is "Blessing."

— Julia Cameron experience

Focused on our good, focused on our abundance we naturally attract more of the same. This is spiritual law. Our consciousness is creative. What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?

— Julia Cameron power

When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature. All of us love. All of us do it more and more perfectly. The past has brought us both ashes and diamonds. In the present we find the flowers of what we've planted and the seeds of what we are becoming. I plant the seeds of love in my heart. I plant the seeds of love in the hearts of others.

— Julia Cameron love

The growth of one blesses all. I am commited to grow in love. All that I touch, I leave in love. I move through this world consciously and creatively.

— Julia Cameron love

Love is not love if it compelled by reason and driven by logic - love exists in spite of those things, not because of them. It is a emotion which needs no fuel to fire it or oxygen to feed it; if you have to look for the why, then stop looking; it was never there at all.

— Julia Cameron love

I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing.

— Julia Cameron life

Spirituality can release blocks, lead you to ideas, and make your life artful. Sometimes when we pray for guidance, we're guided in unexpected directions. We may want a lofty answer and we get the intuition to clean our bedroom. It can seem so humble and picky and that you don't necessarily think of it spiritual guidance.

— Julia Cameron life

I believe that I am very lucky to have close friends who are faithful. From my friends, I have learned the importance of perseverance.

— Julia Cameron faith

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.

— Julia Cameron art

Creativity is always a leap of faith. You're faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage.

— Julia Cameron faith

When we clear the physical clutter from our lives, we literally make way for inspiration and 'good, orderly direction' to enter.

— Julia Cameron inspiration

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

— Julia Cameron control

Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness.

— Julia Cameron life

Don't try to 'fix' the child's boredom - rather, let the child find his or her inner resources.

— Julia Cameron child

Technology teaches passivity. Absorbed in our devices - at any age - we are absorbed in someone else's perspective.

— Julia Cameron perspective

In limits, there is freedom. Creativity thrives within structure. Creating safe havens where our children are allowed to dream, play, make a mess and, yes, clean it up, we teach them respect for themselves and others.

— Julia Cameron freedom

When we put the pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about. Before you write about something, somebody says, 'How do you feel?' and you say, 'Oh, I feel okay.' Then you write about it, and you discover you don't feel okay.

— Julia Cameron life

Art used to be made in the name of faith. We made cathedrals, we made stained-glass windows, we made murals.

— Julia Cameron faith

Buy tabloids. Celebrity gossip is engrossing. Celebrity cellulite can make you forget turbulence.

— Julia Cameron sin

I believe that the 'dark night of the soul' is a common spiritual experience. I believe, too, that the answer is continued seeking and perseverance. It helps to know that others have endured a loss of faith.

— Julia Cameron faith

I always start everything with the weather, because the weather is the first thing that I notice when I wake up in the morning.

— Julia Cameron art

I believe that when we ask to be led, we are led, and there's nothing too small or esoteric for spiritual help.

— Julia Cameron spiritual

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

— Julia Cameron bad

A God Jar is anything you wish it to be, in which you can put your wishes, dreams, problems, prayers. You may want to think of it as a spiritual mailbox.

— Julia Cameron dreams

We go into parenting, and we discover that we don't have the answers. We are at a loss.

— Julia Cameron loss

I think that 'Floor Sample' is a story of resiliency, a lifelong spiritual search, and a lifelong sense of spiritual companionship that is most often expressed as creativity. My desire in writing the book was to step from behind the icon of 'Julia the teacher' and introduce 'Julia the artist.'

— Julia Cameron life

Faith is almost the bottom line of creativity; it requires a leap of faith any time we undertake a creative endeavor, whether this is going to the easel, or the page, or onto the stage - or for that matter, in a homelier way, picking out the right fabric for the kitchen curtains, which is also a creative act.

— Julia Cameron faith

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

— Julia Cameron writing

Spirituality can release blocks, lead you to ideas, and make your life artful. Sometimes when we pray for guidance, were guided in unexpected directions. We may want a lofty answer and we get the intuition to clean our bedroom. It can seem so humble and picky and that you dont necessarily think of it spiritual guidance.

— Julia Cameron life

Most artists, ashamed of their need for encouragement, try to carry their work to term like a secret pregnancy.

— Julia Cameron art

The tools of The Prosperous Heart help people to embrace the life that they actually have, where they often find that they already have enough.

— Julia Cameron life

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