Quotes from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance.

We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.

We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“I believe that what we want to write wants to be written”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Writing for the sake of writing, writing that draws its credibility from its very existence, is a foreign idea to most Americans. As a culture, we want cash on the barrel head. We want writing to earn dollars and sense so that it makes sense to us. We have a conviction—which is naive and misplaced—that being published has to do with being “good” while not being published has to do with being “amateur.” ...

“Did you write today?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re a writer today.”
It would be lovely if being a writer were a permanent state that we could attain to. It’s not, or if it is, the permanence comes posthumously.
A page at a time, a day at a time, is the way we must live our writing lives. Credibility lies in the act of writing. That is where the dignity is. That is where the final “credit” must come from.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“When we forget ourselves, when we let go of being good and just settle into just being a writer, we begin to have the experience of writing through us. We retire as the self-conscious author and become something else - the vehicle for self-expression. When we are just the vehicle, the storyteller and not the point of the story, we often write very well - we certainly write more easily.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The myth that we must have “time”—more time—in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out of it.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Owning something also means owning up to something. It means accepting responsibility, which means, literally, responsibility. When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them, we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are rendered conscious. Each day, each life, is a series of choices, and as we use the lens of writing to view our lives, we see our choices.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The "if I had time" lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born - without the luxury of time.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The “if-I-had-time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born—without the luxury of time.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“When we let ourselves write from love, when we let ourselves steal minutes as gifts to ourselves, our lives become sweeter, our temperaments become sweeter.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“If we are invested in a writing life—as opposed to a writing career—then we are in it for the process and not the product.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“If we eliminate the word "writer", if we just go back to writing as an act of listening and naming what we hear, some of the rules dissappear. There is an organic shape, a form-coming-into-form that is inherent in the thing we are observing, listening to, and trying to put on the page. It has rules of its own that it will reveal to us if we listen with attention. Shape does not need to be imposed. Shape is a part of what we are listening to. When we just let ourselves write, we get it "right".”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Writing is a way not only to metabolize life but to alchemize it as well. It is a way to transform what happens to us in our own experience. It is a way to move from passive to active. We may still be the victims of circumstance, but by our understanding those circumstances we place events within the ongoing context of our own life, that is, the life we "own".”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“When we write from the inside out rather than the outside in, when we write about what most concerns us rather than about what we feel might sell, we often write so well and so persuasively that the market responds to our efforts.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The trick to finding writing time, then, is to write from love and not with an eye to product.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The trick to finding writing time is to make writing time in the life you've already got.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself.” When we “forget ourselves,” it is easy to write. We are not standing there, stiff as a soldier, our entire ego shimmied into every capital “I.” When we forget ourselves, when we let go of being good and settle into just being a writer, we begin to have the experience of writing through us. We retire as the self-conscious author and become something else—the vehicle for self-expression. When we are just the vehicle, the storyteller and not the point of the story, we often write very well—we certainly write more easily.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The myth that we must have “time”—more time—in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have. If we are forever yearning for “more,” we are forever discounting what is offered.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“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 being available to what is trying to bubble up today.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Wherever you are is the entry point,” and this is always true with writing. Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“It's a luxury to be in the mood to write. It's a blessing but it's not a necessity. Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Doing it all the time, whether or not we are in the mood, gives us ownership of our writing ability. It takes it out of the realm of conjuring where we stand on the rock of isolation, begging the winds for inspiration, and it makes it something as do-able as picking up a hammer and pounding a nail. Writing may be an art, but it is certainly a craft. It is a simple and workable thing that can be as steady and reliable as a chore—does that ruin the romance?”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“The myth that we must have "time" - more time - in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have. If we are forever yearning for "more", we are forever discounting what is offered.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Grab for time to write instead of wait for time.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“When we make time to write, we can do it anytime, anywhere.”
― Julia Cameron, quote from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

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Popular quotes

“We're men, and men aren't born to stand alone.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Alanna: The First Adventure

“Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one's past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but, in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers.”
― Dave Eggers, quote from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
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And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
― Clement C. Moore, quote from The Night Before Christmas

“You aren't doing it for the sake of ideals, are you? Not for the sake of...liberty. Freedom, self determination, all that.'
He shook his head. 'No,' he said softly.
'Why, then? I asked, more gently.
'For you,' he said without hesitation.
'...For my family. For the future. And if that is not an ideal, I've never heard of one.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being.”
― John Fowles, quote from The Magus

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