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Natalie Goldberg Quotes

Natalie Goldberg is an American popular author and speaker She is best known for a series of books which explore writing as Zen practice. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. January 1948
Natalie Goldberg photo

Works

Writing Down the Bones
Writing Down the Bones
Natalie Goldberg
Writing Down the Bones
Writing Down the Bones
Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg: 36 quotes1 like

Famous Natalie Goldberg Quotes

“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 book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Original detail". p.45
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Writing is the act of discovery.”

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“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

Source: Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

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

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Anything you do fully is an alone journey.”

Natalie Goldberg

Variant: Anything we fully do is an alone journey.
Source: Writing Down the Bones

“After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.”

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

Natalie Goldberg Quotes about thinking

“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

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. […] It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Go further". p.112
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“The basic unit of writing practice is the timed exercise.
1. Keep your hand moving.
2. Don't cross out.
3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.
4. Lose control.
5. Don't think. Don't get logical.
6. Go for the jugular.
[…] That is the discipline: to continue to sit.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "First thoughts". p.8, 9
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“First, consider the pen your write with. Think, too, about your notebook. […] A cheap spiral notebook lets you feel that you can fill it quickly and afford another. Also, it is easy to carry.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Beginner's mind, pen and paper". p.5, 6
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Natalie Goldberg Quotes

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

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

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

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“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

“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

“Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.”

Natalie Goldberg

“My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal.”

Natalie Goldberg

“keep your hand moving”

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.”

Natalie Goldberg

Source: Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America

“What is important is not just what you do - "I am writing a book"”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

but how you do it, how you approach it, and what you come to value.
[…] There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live.
Essay, "Every Monday". p.127
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Just write. Just write. Just write. [...]
When we are in the heart of writing it doesn't matter where we are. We can write anyplace.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Write anyplace". p.110, 111
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Anything we fully do is an alone journey. […] You are alone when you write a book. Accept that and take in any love and support that is given to you, but don't have expectations of how it is supposed to be.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Epilogue. p.179, 180
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“See the big picture. You are committed to writing or finding out about it. Continue under all circumstances. Don't be rigid though.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "No hindrances". p.145
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak. Then come back.
Don't worry. You won't have lost time. Your energy will be more direct and less wasted.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "The Goody Two-Shoes Nature". p.140
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“If you want a room to write in, just get a room. Don't make a big production out of it. If it doesn't leak, has a window, heat in the winter, then put in your desk, bookshelves, a soft chair, and start writing.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "The writing studio". p.103
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices - street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. […] If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Listening". p.59
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Writers move with grace in and out of many worlds.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Writers have good figures". p.56
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“In a rainstorm, everyone quickly runs down the street with umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers over their heads. Writers go back outside in the rain with a notebook in front of them and a pen in hand. They look at the puddles, watch them fill, watch the rain splash in them.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Living twice". p.53
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Of course, you can sit down and have something you want to say. But then you must let its expression be born in you and on the paper. Don't hold too tight; allow it to come out how it needs to rather than trying to control it.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Writing is not a McDonald's hamburger". p.39
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“I went home with the resolve to write what I knew and to trust my own thoughts and feelings and to not look outside myself. I was not in school anymore: I could say what I wanted.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Introduction. at p.2
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“You tell the truth and you depict it in detail.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Foreword to the 2nd Edition (December 2004), by Natalie Goldberg. p.xxiii
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. […] You practice whether you want to or not.
Through practice you actually do get better.
Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say "I am free to write the worst junk in the world."”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.
Essay, "Writing as a practice". p.11
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

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