Quotes from 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.

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

It is our hope that writing releases us. Instead maybe it deepens the echo. We call out to our past and the call comes back. We are alone--and not alone.

Keep your hand moving. (Don't pause to reread the line you have just written. That's stalling and trying to get control of what you're saying.)

It's good to go off and write a novel, but don't stop doing writing practice.

If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment. Plus that expectation would also keep you from writing.

Add to the list anytime you think of something. Then when you sit down to write, you can just grab a topic from that list and begin.

We learn writing by doing it. That simple. We don't learn by going outside ourselves to authorities we think know about it.

Failure is a hard word for people to take. Use the word kindness then instead. Let yourself be kind. And this kindness comes from an understanding of what it is to be a human being. Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure—just a big field to wander in.

If you never sit still, it does not even hint to that deeper self in you that you are interested. By practice, by showing up, we are signaling that deep motor, that hum of life, that we are ready: Help us. Pay attention and lead us out of our confusion.

How to generate writing ideas, things to write about? Whatever's in front of you is a good beginning. Then move out into all streets. You can go anyplace. Tell me everything you know. Don't worry if what you know you can't prove or haven't studied.

I cannot say why, but the simple act of reading it aloud allows you to let go of it. Do not forget this. Believe me, it helps. At first it is a very scary thing to do.

Happy?" He stared her down. "You can't expect happiness. If it comes along—consider yourself lucky, but that's not what life's about.

Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth, and it spreads out from the page into all of our life, and it should

do all my original writing by hand. I have greater mobility: I can write on planes, with friends in cafés. Plus it feels more connected with my body; my hand moves with my arm and shoulder, which is connected to my chest and heart. All good writing comes from the body and is a physical experience.

We have lived! Our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history.

Writing is 100% listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you. if you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else.

Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things: read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. And don't think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and coloured sensation and keep your pen moving across the page.

Go ahead; take Kant's PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSIC and get it to show what he is telling. We would all be a lot happier.

Tell about the quality of light coming in through your window. Jump in and write. Don't worry if it is night and your curtains are closed or you would rather write about the light up north—just write. Go for ten minutes, fifteen, a half hour.

Write in different places—for example, in a laundromat, and pick up on the rhythm of the washing machines. Write at bus stops, in cafés. Write what is going on around you.

Visualize a place that you really love, be there, see the details. Now write about it.

Write about "leaving." Approach it any way you want. Write about your divorce, leaving the house this morning, or a friend dying.

What crannies of untouched perception can you explore? What autumn was it that 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 were your angels? What are you thinking of? Not thinking of? Writing can give you confidence, can train you to wake up.