Natalie Goldberg Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Stress #Believe #Ignorant

“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Love #Trust No One #Trust Issues

“We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Important #Details #Worthy

“A writer must say yes to life.”
-- 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

#Gratitude #Feet #Air

“We are each a concert reverberating with our whole lives and reflecting and amplifying the world around us.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#World #Concerts #Whole Life

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Fear #Writing #Splits

“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

#Drinking #Writing #Wonder

“It's okay to embark on writing because you think it will get you love. At least it gets you going, but it doesn't last. After a while you realize that no one cares that much. Then you find another reason: money. You can dream on that one while the bills pile up. Then you think: "Well, I'm the sensitive type. I have to express myself." Do me a favor. Don't be so sensitive. Be tough. It will get you further along when you get rejected. Finally, you just do it because you happen to like it.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Dream #Writing #Thinking

“Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Creativity #Moments #Present Moment

“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

#Writing #Acceptance #Order

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

#Writing #Play #Fearless

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Voice #Critics #Not Afraid

“Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Writing #Down And #Shut Up

“Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our lifeforce, and then we go on carrying that person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, 'Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place.' This is how we survive long after we are dead. This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Cells #Roots #Long

“If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Book #Writing #Good Book

“You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Good Times #Enjoyment

“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-mann ered, congenial.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Writing #Thinking #Practice

“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

#Nice #Writing #Want

“Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Writing #Waiting #Stories

“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

#Strong #Real #Thinking

“Writing is the act of discovery.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Writing #Discovery

“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

#Dream #Silly #Mean

“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

#Writing #Cutting #Darkness

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Stress #Earth #Forget

“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

#Strong #Hurt #Real

“The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Determination #Powerful #Writing

“Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.”
-- Natalie Goldberg

#Notebook #Writing #Alive

“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

#Dream #Writing #Acceptance

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

#Waiting #Forever #Responsible