Quote

Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them things they can’t forget stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Writing
Bodies
Things
Carry
Writers
Waiting
Forget
Obsessions
Ends
Haunt
Stories
Released
Body
Obsession

More quotes by 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.
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Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.
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[T]he one thing I want for you is to recognize when you are really singing in writing practice and honor that. Trust that. When you were screaming on the page. Maybe that doesn't make a whole book but that is the true seed.
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In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
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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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Women need space and silence. We too quickly give away our energy. There's something about holding that richness.
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This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it.
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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.
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Anything we fully do is an alone journey.
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In the West, a teacher imparts knowledge to a student. In the East, a teacher transmits nothing more or less than his or her Being.
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Creativity is no big deal.
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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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We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth.
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.
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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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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.
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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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When you bring the darkness to the table, it doesn't rule you or hurt other people, but when we keep it secret, it's dangerous.
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