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If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Outside
Afraid
Inside
Voice
Fear
Compost
Voices
Critics

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.
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We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
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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.
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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.
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I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.
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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
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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.
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I have students that I tell, If your book doesn't sell or you can't publish it, write another book. Quit sitting around. The publishing world is a business, but it's not any big deal. An editor is not your guru. Your agent is not your guru.
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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.
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Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
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The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners.
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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
Natalie Goldberg
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Even an ice cream parlor - a definite advantage - does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore.
Natalie Goldberg
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Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.
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When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
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Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.
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