Natalie Goldberg Quotes

Quotes about:

• I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Mean, Thinking, Knowing Who You Are

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.51, Shambhala Publications

  31 Copy quote
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  Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Inspirational, Funny, Letting Go

  FaceBook post by Natalie Goldberg from Jul 25, 2011

  76 Copy quote

• Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Love, Trust, Acting

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.3, Shambhala Publications

  71 Copy quote

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

  Natalie Goldberg

  Responsibility, Waiting, Forever

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.41, Open Road Media

  27 Copy quote

• Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Writing, Dignity, Teach

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.172, Shambhala Publications

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• 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

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• 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

  Healing, Writing, Self

  7 Copy quote

• If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Voice, Self Hate, Critics

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

  20 Copy quote

• We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Mind, Ordinary, Remember

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.96, Shambhala Publications

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• We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Important, Details, Worthy

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

  33 Copy quote

• We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Writing, Thinking, Fire

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.102, Shambhala Publications

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.131, Shambhala Publications

  14 Copy quote

• Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Inspirational, Journey, Maps

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.6, Shambhala Publications

  20 Copy quote

• Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Way, Tough, Blades

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.192, Open Road Media

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• 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, Recovery

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.133, Shambhala Publications

  30 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Creativity, Ideas

  11 Copy quote

• Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce. In summer, we work hard to make a tidy garden, bordered by pansies with rows or clumps of columbine, petunias, bleeding hearts. Then we find ourselves longing for the forest, where everything has the appearance of disorder; yet we feel peaceful there.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Summer, Falling In Love, Fun

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.6, Open Road Media

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• 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

  Coffee, Fall, Black

  "Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within". Book by Natalie Goldberg, 1986.

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Bothering You, Hands

  7 Copy quote

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

  Natalie Goldberg

  Writing, Play, Fearless

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.86, Shambhala Publications

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• 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

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.165, Open Road Media

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• 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

  Writing, Hands, Joy

  Natalie Goldberg (1998). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, Shambhala Publications

  24 Copy quote

• When you are present, the world is truly alive.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Alive, World

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.13, Shambhala Publications

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• 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

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.66, Open Road Media

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• The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Determination, Powerful, Heart

  Natalie Goldberg (2009). “Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir”, p.1, Simon and Schuster

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