Quotes from Natalie Goldberg

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

Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.

Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.

Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh.

Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth.

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

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are.

One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

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.

The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.

When you bring the darkness to the table, it doesn't rule you or hurt other people, but when we keep it secret, it's dangerous.

The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind.

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

We are each a concert reverberating with our whole lives and reflecting and amplifying the world around us.

A writer must say yes to life.

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.

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.

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath.

Failure is what we're all running from, we're always running toward success with failure at our back.

The harder you chase something, the faster you go and the less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down.

In the West, a teacher imparts knowledge to a student. In the East, a teacher transmits nothing more or less than his or her Being.

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.

Women need space and silence. We too quickly give away our energy. There's something about holding that richness.

We walk through so many myths of each other and ourselves; we are so thankful when someone sees us for who we are and accepts us.