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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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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Time
Encounter
Encounters
Fine
Wonderful
Read
Book
Thing

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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Creativity is no big deal.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths. To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life.
Natalie Goldberg
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Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.
Natalie Goldberg
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The harder you chase something, the faster you go and the less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down.
Natalie Goldberg
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
Natalie Goldberg
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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
Natalie Goldberg
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The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.
Natalie Goldberg
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The first thing is how awful cancer was, the experience. When you first go through it, you're just trying to survive. But when I wrote about it, I really digested it. It was unbearable but I had practice behind me.
Natalie Goldberg
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Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.
Natalie Goldberg
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We walk through so many myths of each other and ourselves we are so thankful when someone sees us for who we are and accepts us.
Natalie Goldberg
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Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.
Natalie Goldberg
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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
Natalie Goldberg
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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
Natalie Goldberg