Top 200 Natalie Goldberg Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.”

— Natalie Goldberg

102. “When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn’t leave you.”

— Natalie Goldberg

103. “Ultimately, writing is about trusting your own mind. It is an act of discovery.”

— Natalie Goldberg

104. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

105. “Jump in, no excuses. Exert the force of your life. Persevere under all circumstances.”

— Natalie Goldberg

106. “Style requires digesting who we are.”

— Natalie Goldberg

107. “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 – read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.”

— Natalie Goldberg

108. “When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind.”

— Natalie Goldberg

109. “To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.”

— Natalie Goldberg

110. “Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.”

— Natalie Goldberg

111. “We learn writing by doing it.”

— Natalie Goldberg

112. “Inspiration means breathing in. Breathing in God.”

— Natalie Goldberg

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

— Natalie Goldberg

114. “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...”

— Natalie Goldberg

115. “Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth.”

— Natalie Goldberg

116. “I’m never ashamed to read a book twice or as many times as I want. We never expect to drink a glass of water just once in our lives. A book can be that essential, too.”

— Natalie Goldberg

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

— Natalie Goldberg

118. “If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”

— Natalie Goldberg

119. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

120. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

121. “I honor English majors. It’s a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It’s good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That’s the best kind of love.”

— Natalie Goldberg

122. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

123. “We must continue to open in the face of tremendous opposition. No one is encouraging us to open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart.”

— Natalie Goldberg

124. “Talk when you talk, walk when you walk, and die when you die.”

— Natalie Goldberg

125. “The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.”

— Natalie Goldberg

126. “It’s much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms.”

— Natalie Goldberg

127. “Sit down right now. Give me this moment. Write whatever’s running through you. You might start with “this moment” and end up writing about the gardenia you wore at your wedding seven years ago. That’s fine. Don’t try to control it. Stay present with whatever comes up, and keep your hand moving.”

— Natalie Goldberg

128. “So writing is not just writing. It is also having a relationship with other writers. And don’t be jealous, especially secretly. That’s the worst kind. If someone writes something great, it’s just more clarity in the world for all of us.”

— Natalie Goldberg

129. “Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.”

— Natalie Goldberg

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

— Natalie Goldberg

131. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

132. “The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.”

— Natalie Goldberg

133. “Why else are first thoughts so energizing? Because they have to do with freshness and inspiration. Inspiration means “breathing in.” Breathing in God. You actually become larger than yourself, and first thoughts are present. They are not a cover-up of what is actually happening or being felt. The present is imbued with tremendous energy. It is what is.”

— Natalie Goldberg

134. “Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader’s job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.”

— Natalie Goldberg

135. “When you draw and pay attention to what is, it’s a form of being present. This inspires the mind, makes it happy, and the heart wants to express more.”

— Natalie Goldberg

136. “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 meet ourselves and become intimate.”

— Natalie Goldberg

137. “Let yourself live in something that is already rightfully yours – your own wild mind.”

— Natalie Goldberg

138. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

139. “In writing with detail, you are turning to face the world. It is a deeply political act, because you are not staying in the heat of your own emotions. You are offering up some good solid bread for the hungry.”

— Natalie Goldberg

140. “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 there’s 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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

141. “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 colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page. If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”

— Natalie Goldberg

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

— Natalie Goldberg

143. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

144. “It was my own human mind. I needed to understand it. Why? It’s the writer’s landscape. Imagine that a painter has that wild animal to capture on canvas: arresting its fangs, the raging color of its eyes, the blue of it’s hump, the flash of its hoofs, the rugged shadow that it casts. We writers have that beast inside us: how we feel, think, hope, dream, perceive.”

— Natalie Goldberg

145. “Hear “You are boring” as distant white laundry flapping in the breeze. Eventually.”

— Natalie Goldberg

146. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

147. “Tibetan Buddhists say that a person should never get rid of their negative energy, that negative energy transformed is the energy of enlightenment, and that the only difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle. If we stop struggling and open up and accept what is, that neurotic energy naturally arises as wisdom, naturally informs us and becomes our teacher.”

— Natalie Goldberg

148. “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.”

— Natalie Goldberg

149. “TAKE A SUBJECT, a situation, a story that is hard for you to talk about, and write about it. Write slowly, evenly, in a measured way. Don’t skip over any part of it. Stay in there. It might take you several days, a week, a month to write out the whole thing. Continue to work on it every day until it is finished.”

— Natalie Goldberg

150. “You live and then you die, I thought. It’s good to have some good times.”

— Natalie Goldberg