Emily Carr Quotes

I made myself into an envelope into which I could thrust my work deep, lick the flap, seal it from everybody.

Art is art, nature is nature, you cannot improve upon it…. Pictures should be inspired by nature, but made in the soul of the artist. It is the soul of the individual that counts.

It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw, not because she is Canada but because she’s something sublime that you were born into, some great rugged power that you are a part of.

Art is an aspect of God and there is only one God, but different people see Him in different ways. Though He is always the same He doesn’t always look the same.

Don’t take what someone else has made sure of and pretend it’s you yourself that have made sure of it till it’s yours absolutely by conviction. It’s stealing to take it and hypocrisy and you’ll fall into a hole.

Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.

The foolish square calves pretend to be frightened of our train. Bluffers! Haven’t they seen it every day since they were born? It’s just an excuse to shake the joy out of their heels.

If the air is jam-full of sounds which we tune in with, why should it not also be full of feels and smells and things seen through the spirit, drawing particles from us to them and them to us like magnets?

The house begins to be a home. The unfamiliar places are beginning to fold the familiar objects into their keeping and to cozy them down. Objects that swore at each other when the movers heaved them into the new rooms have subsided into corners and sit to lick their feet and wash their faces like cats accepting a new home.

Up came the sun, and drank the dew.

enter into the life of the trees. Know your relationship and understand their language, unspoken, unwritten talk. Answer back to them with their own dumb magnificence, soul words, earth words, the God in you responding to the God in them.

Writing is a splendid sorter of… feelings, better even than paint.