Natalie Goldberg Quotes

The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind.

I write to discover what I think.

I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.

I write to find out what I think.

It's while writing that suddenly a point of view appears: 'So, that's what I really thought about this thing'. Then it feels part of me.

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

I think we're all very curious about our own minds, but we just may not have the tools to channel that.

The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.

If you want to understand what you're thinking, you kind of have to work it through and write it. And the only way to work it through, for me, is to write it.

I don't write for catharsis; I have to write to understand.

I think to the degree writers are serious, there is a greater tendency for them to write to themselves, because they're trying to compose their own thoughts. They are trying to find out what is in their minds, which is the great mystery. Finding out who you are, what is in your head, and what kind of companion you are to yourself in the course of life. I do think people have very profound lives of which they say virtually nothing.

Ultimately, writing is about trusting your own mind. It is an act of discovery.

Writing is like paying myself a formal visit.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

Thought the mind can justify itself faster than the speed of light, it can be stopped through the act of writing.

Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you think by the process of writing.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

For me, writing is a parenthesis where I can make sense of life.

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?

When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking.

I can only write about personal stuff, about my point of view.