Quote

You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.

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
Present
Loses
Clear
Vague
Stories
Details
Love
Connections
Reader
Personal
Lose

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

Image
Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning. We should not be ashamed of this. It is good. It's like drinking water.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
Natalie Goldberg
Image
We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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
As writers we need to crack open language.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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
Image
I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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
Image
I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.
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
Image
Understand that writing is like an athletic activity. To play tennis well, you expect to keep practicing, but for some reason with writing, you think you should come out fresh the first time.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.
Natalie Goldberg
Image
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