Natalie Goldberg Quotes

86 Sourced Quotes

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

Natalie Goldberg
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
Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.

Natalie Goldberg
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
It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.

Natalie Goldberg
Writing is the crack through which you can crawl into a bigger world, into your wild mind.

Natalie Goldberg
We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.

Natalie Goldberg
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
There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before.

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

Natalie Goldberg