Natalie Goldberg Quotes

You want to strike that happy medium: the balance of being able to find creative satisfaction in your profession, be able to afford a roof over your head, but still have the freedom to live a relatively normal life.

I love the freedom of writing and then I love the realization of directing. I can't favor one or the other. I enjoy both parts of the process.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

I would assume that there is a greater amount of joy for you in being able to write and help produce your own stuff and make a decent living, but not get rich versus always doing the other stuff that you don’t write, and make more money.

For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.

Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.

I feel lucky that I've been able to make a living from painting any idea that comes into my head.

Zombie books were going to be my passion projects, but certainly not pay the bills. I thought I was going to have to get a real job on a sitcom or something, and have my zombie books to remind myself I was still a writer at heart. I never thought I could actually pay my bills and write what I wanted.

I love making money, but you can't live your life waiting to get rich in a job that no longer feeds you artistically.

I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.

There's a part of me that wants to be known and make a comfortable living but still be able to go grocery shopping. My overall idea of success is having people I want to work with want to work with me.

Whatever one considers art to be, there is in many people a hunger to express themselves creatively and to feel authentic in doing that.

Which, of course, isn't the point of writing - but it would be nice if, along with the creative satisfaction of writing and seeing my work in print, I could do more than merely scrape a living. Okay, moaning over.

My bar for being successful is being able to do movies that really mean something to me and being able to make a living off of that.

To have a second movie that you're proud of and that actually turned out the way you wanted, shot by shot, I realize I'm probably going to be able to do this for a little while for my living.

I am lucky enough not to have to take jobs unless I love the material.

One of my aims was to be paid as well as a plumber. Plumber was better-paid than any performance artist who was always doing this for free. It is so important to make a good living from art. You know, John Cage, until he was 60, he couldn't pay electricity.

My general advice for writers/comedians is, make stuff you like and are proud of. Put it in a place where people can see it, whether that's onstage or on the Internet or wherever. Just do the things that make you happy creatively, and then show them to people.

I have a teaching job that allows me to pay the rent and affords me to, frankly, write the books I want to write.

It is essential for artistes to have that release of creativity, almost as necessary as eating food or drinking water.

I have a hard time being career-minded, but I want to be able to survive as an actor and do work that I think is important and that says something.

It took me a long time to get to a position where I can feel that, with my art, I'm capable of saying what I need to say, and once I finish it, I can sit back and say, "It's done, and I'm okay with that. People can judge it good or bad, and it doesn't matter. I'm okay with it because I said something I needed to say." That's a really hard place to get, as an artist.

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about.

I feel very creatively satisfied and lucky that I get to write for other people, but for something I direct, it has to be something I completely understand every facet of.

Success is being artistically fulfilled and happy. You can't control how people see your movie or how much money it makes...and the same thing with music. When I'm writing a song or I'm in the studio, those memories, that's epic.