Natalie Goldberg Quotes

You Don't Know What You're Doing. You're Just Hoping That People Won't Make Fun Of You. I Had No Idea How It Would Turn Out.

That Daydreaming Seemed Important At The Time, But When I Asked My Teacher Katagiri Roshi About It, He Said, "oh, It's Just Laziness. Get To Work." But As For Discipline, I Don't Even Use That Word. I Think More About Passion Or Love. What I've Really Learned Is The Way The Mind Moves, And How The Mind Works. Rather Than Discipline, I Know How To Seduce My Mind.

I Don't Know Anything But Writing Practice, And So What I Really Do Is Direct That Energy As If It Were Flowing Down A River.

Really You Don't Need More Information. If You've Lived Twenty Years, You Probably Have Enough Material For The Rest Of Your Life

While I Had Cancer, I Wrote These Twenty-two Personal Essays About How I Lived My Life Backed By Zen And Writing.

I Told All Kinds Of Stories About Going To Japan, About Playing Ball With My Father... I Wanted To Record My Life In Case It Was Going To End Soon. So, I Wrote That And It Was Very Comforting To Have That Practice In The Afternoons In My Living Room. I Just Wrote About My Life.

The First Thing Is How Awful Cancer Was, The Experience. When You First Go Through It, You're Just Trying To Survive. But When I Wrote About It, I Really Digested It. It Was Unbearable But I Had Practice Behind Me.

So Even Though I Couldn't Bear Writing About Cancer, I Faced It Every Day.

Because I've Been Doing My Practice For So Long, I Knew What To Do Even Under Really Hard Circumstances.

I Have Students That I Tell, "if Your Book Doesn't Sell Or You Can't Publish It, Write Another Book. Quit Sitting Around." The Publishing World Is A Business, But It's Not Any Big Deal. An Editor Is Not Your Guru. Your Agent Is Not Your Guru.

Friends Open The Door For Me To Write. Then I Get Paid Attention To And It Allows Me To Write Other Books. The Great Spring And The Thirtieth Anniversary Of Bones Just Came Out And While I'm Happy And Excited About That, I've Already Finished A New Book. That's What Practice Does. You Don't Get Caught.

I Think Book Publishing Is Fun, But I Also Know I've Been Very Lucky.