Quotes from 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.

What crannies of untouched perception can you explore? What autumn was it that the moon entered your life? When was it that you picked blueberries at their quintessential moment? How long did you wait for your first true bike? Who are your angels? What are you thinking of? Not thinking of? What are you looking at? Not looking at?

In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.

This is why it is good to remember: if you want to get high, don't drink whiskey; read Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats, Neruda, Hopkins, Millay, Whitman, aloud and let your body sing.

And don't worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want.

You have to let writing eat your life and follow it where it takes you. You fit into it; it doesn't fit neatly into your life. It makes you wild.

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you. Besides, those voices are merely guardians and demons protecting the real treasure, the first thoughts of the mind.

OK, now write for ten minutes, keep the hand moving, tell me what you carry.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

In other words you disappear, you become one with your words, not separate, and when you put your pen down, the you who was writing is gone.

And what great writers actually pass on is not so much their words, but they hand on their breath at their moments of inspiration.

This all happened fifteen years ago. A friend once told me: "Trust in love and it will take you where you need to go." I want to add, "Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go." And don't worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want. How many of us with our big salaries are actually secure anyway?

I'm sorry I don't have brilliant reasons for beginning a novel. As you go along, you make up reasons to do what you want. There's an open space. Enter it.

Let some of the good writing go. Don't worry. There'll be lots of it over time. You can't use all of it. Be generous and allow some of it to lie fallow. What a relief! We can write well and let it go.

Understanding engenders care.

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.

Reach out of the deep chasm of your loneliness and express yourself to another human being.

I had to get slow and dumb (not take anything for granted) and watch and see how everything connects, how you contact your thoughts and lay them down on paper.

Begin with "I remember." Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going. Don't be concerned if the memory happened five seconds ago or five years ago.

Give me your morning. Breakfast, waking up, walking to the bus stop. Be as specific as possible. Slow down in your mind and go over the details of the morning.

Don't worry, no one ever died of it. You might cry or laugh, but not die.

There is no excuse. If you want to write, write.This is your life, you are responsible for it.You will not live forever.Don't wait. Make the time now.

Style requires digesting who we are.

Explore the rugged edge of thought . Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.