Natalie Goldberg Quotes

The problem is we think we exist. ~ Natalie Goldberg

What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind ... The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren't writing. It is not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing. ~ Natalie Goldberg

In other words you disappear, you become one with your words, not separate, and when you put your pen down, the you who was writing is gone. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice. ~ Natalie Goldberg

We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don't wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Hear "You are boring" as distant white laundry flapping in the breeze. Eventually ~ Natalie Goldberg

I feel that 'The Great Failure' is really a book written out of great love and a willingness to face all of who a human being is. ~ Natalie Goldberg

can't take myself too seriously when I open ~ Natalie Goldberg

You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I cannot say why, but the simple act of reading it aloud allows you to let go of it. Do not forget this. Believe me, it helps. At first it is a very scary thing to do. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Tell about the quality of light coming in through your window. Jump in and write. Don't worry if it is night and your curtains are closed or you would rather write about the light up north - just write. Go for ten minutes, fifteen, a half hour. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Talk when you talk, walk when you walk, and die when you die. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds, come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I remember a friend many years ago who had taped a sign to his refrigerator: There's a dream dreaming us. If you try to think about what that means it makes your mind silly, but that silliness is good. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I'm never ashamed to read a book twice or as many times as I want. We never expect to drink a glass of water just once in our lives. A book can be that essential, too. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it ~ Natalie Goldberg

We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, "It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home." Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out. ~ Natalie Goldberg

There's an old adage in writing: 'Don't tell, but show.' Writing is not psychology. We do not talk 'about' feelings. Instead the writer feels and through her words awakens those feelings in the reader. The writer takes the reader's hand and guides him through the valley of sorrow and joy without ever having to mention those words. ~ Natalie Goldberg

When you are present, the world is truly alive. ~ Natalie Goldberg

As writers we need to crack open language. ~ Natalie Goldberg

If you feel bored or uncomfortable as you're writing, ask yourself what's bothering you and write about that. Sometimes your creative energy is like water in a kinked hose, and before thoughts can flow on the topic at hand, you have to straighten the hose by attending to whatever is preoccupying you. ~ Natalie Goldberg

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Even an ice cream parlor - a definite advantage - does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It's pretty nice to be talented. If you are, enjoy, but it won't take you that far. Work takes you a lot further. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing became a tool I used to digest my life and understand, finally, the grace, the gratitude I could feel, not because everything was hunky-dory, but because we can use everything we are. ~ Natalie Goldberg

If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up
to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else. ~ Natalie Goldberg

If you love the work, it will love you back. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Keep your hand moving. (Don't pause to reread the line you have just written. That's stalling and trying to get control of what you're saying.) ~ Natalie Goldberg

Tulips come up in spring for no reason. Of course, you planted bulbs and now in April the earth warms up. But why? For no reason except gravity. Why gravity? For no reason. And why did you plant red tulip bulbs to begin with? For beauty, which is itself and has no reason. So the world is empty. Things rise and fall for no reason. And what a great opportunity that is! You can start writing again at any minute. Let go of all your failures and sit down and write something great. Or write something terrible and feel great about it. ~ Natalie Goldberg

The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners ... ~ Natalie Goldberg

Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself. ~ Natalie Goldberg

The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth ... ~ Natalie Goldberg

Sometimes people say to me, "I want to write, but I have five kids, a full-time job, a wife who beats me, a tremendous debt to my parents," and so on.
I say to them, "There is no excuse. If you want to write, write. This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait. Make the time now, even if it is ten minutes once a week. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Write in different places - for example, in a laundromat, and pick up on the rhythm of the washing machines. Write at bus stops, in cafés. Write what is going on around you. ~ Natalie Goldberg

This quiet place exists as we exist, here on the earth. It just is. That is where the best writing comes from and what we must connect with in order to write well. ~ Natalie Goldberg

The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Never underestimate people. They do desire the cut of truth. ~ Natalie Goldberg

The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind. ~ Natalie Goldberg

This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It is good to pay attention to our dreams. For a period of a few weeks, write them down each morning. You don't have to do anything else. Just write them down. They have their own magic and will bleed into your waking life. While ~ Natalie Goldberg

THE BASIC UNIT of writing practice is the timed exercise. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. ~ Natalie Goldberg

You must be a great warrior when you contact first thoughts and write from them. ~ Natalie Goldberg

The harder you chase something, the faster you go and the less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down ... ~ Natalie Goldberg

SIT DOWN WITH THE plan to write something you have always wanted to write but have never managed to get around to. This time, though, you are not timing yourself. You are sitting down with the determination to write it through, even if it takes all afternoon or night. Relax and ease into it. Promise yourself you'll burn through, put the real stuff down, and not get in your own way. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Tibetan Buddhists say that a person should never get rid of their negative energy, that negative energy transformed is the energy of enlightenment, and that the only difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle. If we stop struggling and open up and accept what is, that neurotic energy naturally arises as wisdom, naturally informs us and becomes our teacher. ~ Natalie Goldberg

That dead feeling hits hard and permeates the first year. It comes back to test you often in the following years, but if you get through the first year, then you know about it. It will never have the power to defeat you again. ~ Natalie Goldberg

TAKE A SUBJECT, a situation, a story that is hard for you to talk about, and write about it. Write slowly, evenly, in a measured way. Don't skip over any part of it. Stay in there. It might take you several days, a week, a month to write out the whole thing. Continue to work on it every day until it is finished. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me ... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life ... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have. ~ Natalie Goldberg

In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell. ~ Natalie Goldberg

First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash. ~ Natalie Goldberg

And though death is howling at our backs and life is roaring at our faces, we can just begin to write, simply begin to write what we have to say. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It's the process of writing and life that matters.Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This process teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning. We should not be ashamed of this. It is good. It's like drinking water. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing, too, is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you wrote, it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. You don't only listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.
Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You can take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are."
...If you can capture the way things are that's all the poetry you ever need. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work. ~ Natalie Goldberg

How to generate writing ideas, things to write about? Whatever's in front of you is a good beginning. Then move out into all streets. You can go anyplace. Tell me everything you know. Don't worry if what you know you can't prove or haven't studied. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind. ~ Natalie Goldberg

When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind ~ Natalie Goldberg

Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth. ~ Natalie Goldberg

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write. ~ Natalie Goldberg

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive. ~ Natalie Goldberg

My teachers could have been Jesse James for all the time they stole from me. ~ Natalie Goldberg

To read and to write is to be empowered. No shackle can ultimately hold you. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Write about "leaving." Approach it any way you want. Write about your divorce, leaving the house this morning, or a friend dying. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I'm sorry I don't have brilliant reasons for beginning a novel. As you go along, you make up reasons to do what you want. There's an open space. Enter it. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Inspiration means breathing in. Breathing in God. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It's much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I had to get slow and dumb (not take anything for granted) and watch and see how everything connects, how you contact your thoughts and lay them down on paper. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Accept loss forever Be submissive to everything, open, listening No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge Be in love with your life ~ Natalie Goldberg

Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Happy?" He stared her down. "You can't expect happiness. If it comes along - consider yourself lucky, but that's not what life's about. ~ Natalie Goldberg

We should notice that we are already supported at every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support. ~ Natalie Goldberg

All of us can create if we allow ourselves to. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Don't let yourself be thrown away ... Continue on no matter what ... Continue to make a positive effort for the good. ~ Natalie Goldberg

My desolation was that no one knew me and I did not know myself. My family's life was my life. I knew nothing else. I was clothed, fed, given a bed to sleep in, encouraged to marry early and rich, and loved in a generic way -- I was "the big one," which meant the older and my sister was the 'little one" --but no one spoke to me, no one explained anything. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Why else are first thoughts so energizing? Because they have to do with freshness and inspiration. Inspiration means "breathing in." Breathing in God. You actually become larger than yourself, and first thoughts are present. They are not a cover-up of what is actually happening or being felt. The present is imbued with tremendous energy. It is what is. ~ Natalie Goldberg

That's very nice if they want to publish you, but don't pay too much attention to it. It will toss you away. Just continue to write. ~ Natalie Goldberg

People often say, "I was walking along [or driving, shopping, jogging] and I had this whole poem go through my mind, but when I sat down to write it, I couldn't get it to come out right." I never can either. Sitting to write is another activity. Let go of walking or jogging and the poem that was born then in your mind. This is another moment. Write another poem. Perhaps secretly hope something of what you thought a while ago might come out, but let it come out however it does. Don't force it. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else. ~ Natalie Goldberg

We live on the edge of the abstract all the time. Look at something solid in the known world: an automobile. Separate the fender, the hood, the roof, lie them on the garage floor, walk around them. Let go of the urge to reassemble the care or to pronounce fender, hood, roof. Look at them as curve, line, form. Relax the mind. Don't immediately try to make meaning or be practical. Truthfully, how practical is life anyway? All our work, and death is the final result? So let's enjoy the unfolding shape, the elemental, organic delight and agony of it all. ~ Natalie Goldberg

It's good to go off and write a novel, but don't stop doing writing practice. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing is 100% listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you. if you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. ~ Natalie Goldberg

WRITE EVERYTHING YOU know about dying. Just go. Don't think, "What does she mean by that?" Dive in. We die in all kinds of ways. Who died? When did they die? how? why? ~ Natalie Goldberg

It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Begin with "I remember." Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going. Don't be concerned if the memory happened five seconds ago or five years ago. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That's how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand how the writer moves, pauses, and sees. That's what being a lover is: stepping out of yourself, stepping into someone else's skin. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Dreams are another slice of reality, not different from where we are now - they just tell about it in a different way. They also can open up your reality. They don't have the constraints of conscious logic. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond. ~ Natalie Goldberg