Natalie Goldberg Art Quotations

Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.

Too often we take notes on writing, we think about writing but never do it. I want you to walk into the heart of the storm, written words dripping off hair, eyelids, hanging from hands.

Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart.

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.

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath.

Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat.

The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.

If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.

Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth.