The Artist's Way Quotes

“In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Leap, and the net will appear.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“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, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“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, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Serious art is born from serious play.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention...the capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Art is born in attention.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“We've all heard that the unexamined life is not worth living, but consider too that the unlived life is not worth examining.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do—spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“The trick is to metabolize pain as energy. Learn, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: "What next?" instead of "Why me?”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“We always do the best we can by the light we have to see by.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Boredom is just “What’s the use?” in disguise. And “What’s the use?” is fear, and fear means you are secretly in despair. So put your fears on the page. Put anything on the page. Put three pages of it on the page.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

“The reward for attention is always healing.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as creator but seldom see "creator" as the literal term for "artist". I am suggesting you take the term "creator" quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain—the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed, finally, is the pain that underlies all pain: the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, “unutterably alone.” More than anything else, attention is an act of connection.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. SENECA”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. ANAÏS NIN”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Our tears prepare the ground for our future growth. Without this creative moistening, we may remain barren. We must allow the bolt of pain to strike us. Remember, this is useful pain; lightning illuminates.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“There is the risk you cannot afford to take, [and] there is the risk you cannot afford not to take. PETER DRUCKER”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. MARGARET YOUNG”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“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, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Listening to the siren song of more, we are deaf to the still small voice waiting in our soul to whisper, ‘You’re enough.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity