Natalie Quotes

We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.

Writing is the crack through which you can crawl into a bigger world, into your wild mind.

There's no such thing as a writer's block. If you're having trouble writing, well, pick up the pen and write. No matter what, keep that hand moving. Writing is really a physical activity.

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.

Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.

In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.

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.

I honor English majors. It's a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It's good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That's the best kind of love.

Even an ice cream parlor - a definite advantage - does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore.

Writing is not a McDonald's Hamburger.

Be awake to the details around you, but don't be self-conscious.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.

To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.

In a way, the cancer became an ally because it stopped me from running around so much. I was able to settle down and write things I hadn't had a chance to before.

Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.

If you love the work, it will love you back.

Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Read books. They are good for us.

When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.

We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.

When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind

One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.

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

There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before.

The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself.

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

Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.

I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.

A writer's job is to give the reader a larger vision of the world.

keep your hand moving

A responsibility of literature is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

I consider writing a legitimate Zen practice.

You don't need to go to a therapist, you don't need to do all kinds of things. If you want to write, you physically have to do it.

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.

Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.

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.

I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.

While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.

Really you don't need more information. If you've lived twenty years, you probably have enough material for the rest of your life

I read Eve Ensler and thought it was fabulous. Not only that, but it was really the only thing I could relate to about cancer.

The odd thing is, that I wrote The Great Spring while I had cancer and it's not about cancer. It was after I was done with cancer that I wrote a book about it.

So even though I couldn't bear writing about cancer, I faced it every day.

If I didn't have that, fear and projections over what was coming next could have taken over. But it was tough. Don't think I was an angel. It was hell.

I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.

I don't know anything but writing practice, and so what I really do is direct that energy as if it were flowing down a river.