Natalie Goldberg citations

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it”

“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.”

“Anything you do fully is an alone journey.”

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

“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.”

“keep your hand moving”

“Writing is the act of discovery.”

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

“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”