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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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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 77
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Writing
Heart
Muscles
Visible
Curiosity
Determination
Passionate
Powerful
Attention

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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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.
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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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Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.
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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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We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
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Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.
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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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As writers we need to crack open language.
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We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close.
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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.
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When you are present, the world is truly alive.
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I told all kinds of stories about going to Japan, about playing ball with my father... I wanted to record my life in case it was going to end soon. So, I wrote that and it was very comforting to have that practice in the afternoons in my living room. I just wrote about my life.
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In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.
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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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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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We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.
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Writing is not a McDonald's Hamburger.
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I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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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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