Natalie Goldberg

“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...”

“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...”

“The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkn...”

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”

“I don't 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...”

“Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.”

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.”

“Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That's how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand...”

“My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal.”

“Anything we fully do is an alone journey.”

“I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.”

“Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and...”

“Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it”

“After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.”

“In the past few years I've 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 --...”

“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.”

“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 u...”

“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 ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the...”

“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...”

“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 though...”