Writing Down the Bones Quotes

“It's the process of writing and life that matters.Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This process teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“And what great writers actually pass on is not so much their words, but they hand on their breath at their moments of inspiration.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“What crannies of untouched perception can you explore? What autumn was it that the moon entered your life? When was it that you picked blueberries at their quintessential moment? How long did you wait for your first true bike? Who are your angels? What are you thinking of? Not thinking of? What are you looking at? Not looking at?”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you. Besides, those voices are merely guardians and demons protecting the real treasure, the first thoughts of the mind.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. 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. It is not getting sidetracked, thinking you shouldn’t write any more about your Jewish family when that’s your role in life: to record their history, who they were in Brooklyn, on Long Island, at Miami Beach—the first generation of American Goldbergs—before it all passes and is gone.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Writing... is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you...You don't only listen to the person speaking to you across the table, but simultaneously listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Reach out of the deep chasm of your loneliness and express yourself to another human being.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Give me your morning. Breakfast, waking up, walking to the bus stop. Be as specific as possible. Slow down in your mind and go over the details of the morning.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Begin with “I remember.” Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going. Don’t be concerned if the memory happened five seconds ago or five years ago.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“This all happened fifteen years ago. A friend once told me: “Trust in love and it will take you where you need to go.” I want to add, “Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.” And don’t worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want. How many of us with our big salaries are actually secure anyway?”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“I had to get slow and dumb (not take anything for granted) and watch and see how everything connects, how you contact your thoughts and lay them down on paper.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“14294Inspiration means breathing in. Breathing in God. You actually become larger than yourself and first thoughts are present.”
― Natalie Goldberg (Author), Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“We walk through so many myths of each other and ourselves; we are so thankful when someone sees us for who we are and accept us.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Explore the rugged edge of thought . Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment. Plus that expectation would also keep you from writing.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“We learn writing by doing it. That simple. We don’t learn by going outside ourselves to authorities we think know about it.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Writing, too, is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you wrote, it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. You don't only listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.
Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You can take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are."
...If you can capture the way things are that's all the poetry you ever need.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“I wish I had another chance to write that school composition, 'What I Did Last Summer.' When I wrote it in fifth grade, I was scared and just recorded: 'It was interesting. It was nice. My summer was fun.' I snuck through with a B grade. But I still wondered, How do you really do that? Now it is obvious. You tell the truth and you depict it in detail: 'My mother dyed her hair red and polished her toenails silver. I was mad for Parcheesi and running the sprinkler catching beetles in a mason jar and feeding them grass. My father sat at the kitchen table a lot staring straight ahead, never talking, a Budweiser in his hand.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Add to the list anytime you think of something. Then when you sit down to write, you can just grab a topic from that list and begin.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“It’s good to go off and write a novel, but don’t stop doing writing practice.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“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.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“We have lived! Our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth, and it spreads out from the page into all of our life, and it should”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“How to generate writing ideas, things to write about? Whatever's in front of you is a good beginning. Then move out into all streets. You can go anyplace. Tell me everything you know. Don't worry if what you know you can't prove or haven't studied.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Yet it is good to know about our terrible selves, not laud or criticize them, just acknowledge them. Then, out of this knowledge, we are better equipped to make a choice for beauty, kind consideration, and clear truth. We make this choice with our feet firmly on the ground. We are not running wildly after beauty with fear at our backs.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Go ahead; take Kant's PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSIC and get it to show what he is telling. We would all be a lot happier.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things: read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. And don't think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and coloured sensation and keep your pen moving across the page.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within