Quotes by Natalie Goldberg

I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home Ill ever have.

Its okay to embark on writing because you think it will get you love. At least it gets you going, but it doesnt last. After a while you realize that no one cares that much. Then you find another reason: money. You can dream on that one while the bills pile up. Then you think: Well, Im the sensitive type. I have to express myself. Do me a favor. Dont be so sensitive. Be tough. It will get you further along when you get rejected.Finally, you just do it because you happen to like it.

In the past few years Ive assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.

I dont 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.

What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind…The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial.

We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed egos needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldnt knowingly bear such reduction, so weve tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.

I remember a friend many years ago who had taped a sign to his refrigerator: Theres a dream dreaming us. If you try to think about what that means it makes your mind silly, but that silliness is good.

Dreams are another slice of reality, not different from where we are now—they just tell about it in a different way. They also can open up your reality. They don’t have the constraints of conscious logic.

Once you connect with your mind, you are who you are and you’re free.

You live and then you die, I thought. Its good to have some good times.

As writers we live life twice, like a cow that eats its food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again. We have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. ...This is our life and its not going to last forever. There isnt time to talk about someday writing that short story or poem or novel. Slow down now, touch what is around you, and out of care and compassion for each moment and detail, put pen to paper and begin to write.

The responsibility of literatuure is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

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.

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.

Of course, we are drawn to teachers who unconsciously mirror our own psychology. None of us are clean. We all make mistakes. Its the repetition of those mistakes and the refusal to look at them that compound the suffering and assure their continuation.

poems are small moments of enlightenment

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

Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fas as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But theres another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives every second at a time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and details.

Writing, too, is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you wrote, it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. You dont only listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck. Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You can take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are....If you can capture the way things are thats all the poetry you ever need.

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.