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The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Neurosis
Difference
Differences
Struggle
Wisdom

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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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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The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
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I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren't writing. It is not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing.
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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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Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.
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I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.
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Writing is not a McDonald's Hamburger.
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After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.
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Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.
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I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.
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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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In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
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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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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
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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.
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
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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.
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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
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Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh.
Natalie Goldberg
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Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
Natalie Goldberg