Quote

The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.

Natalie Goldberg

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Neurosis
Difference
Differences
Struggle
Wisdom

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

Image
I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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
Image
I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
I read Eve Ensler and thought it was fabulous. Not only that, but it was really the only thing I could relate to about cancer.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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
Image
We should notice that we are already supported at every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support.
Natalie Goldberg