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I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Means
Earth
Used
Supposed
Mean
Meant
Think
Simply
Thinking
Knowing
Whatever
Freedom

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When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
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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.
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When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
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This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.
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It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
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Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths. To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life.
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We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
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While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
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Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.
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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter the act of writing does.
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Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.
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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
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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.
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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.
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As writers we need to crack open language.
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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.
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