Quotes from "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron has come up a lot for me lately. She's shown up in book recommendations from designers on Instagram, been an interviewee on Russell Brand's YouTube channel (which I recently stumbled upon), etc. I've had "The Artist's Way" on hold at the library for a while now, and today I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the eBook version. Here are some quotes I want to store here for safe-keeping.

• "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."
• "What we are talking about is an induced - or invited - spiritual experience. I refer to this process as spiritual chiropractic. We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative energy of the universe."
• "The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see 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."
• "In choosing which half of the tasks to do, use two guidelines. Pick those that appeal to you and those you strongly resist. Leave the more neutral ones for later. Just remember, in choosing, that we often resist what we most need."
• "So what if you're tired, crabby, distracted, stressed? Your artist is a child and it needs to be fed. Morning pages feed your artist child. So write your morning pages."
• "A little fun can go a long way toward making your work feel more like play. We forget that the imagination-at-play is at the heart of all good work. And increasing our capacity for good creative work is what this book is all about."
• "As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them - to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well."
  
• "Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details (for instance, the excruciatingly beautiful curve of a lost lover's neck). Art may seem to involve broad strokes, grand schemes, great plans. But it is the attention to detail that stays with us; the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art."