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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: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Visible
Curiosity
Determination
Passionate
Powerful
Attention
Writing
Heart
Muscles

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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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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Anything we fully do is an alone journey.
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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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Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.
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So writing is not just writing. It is also having a relationship with other writers. And don't be jealous, especially secretly. That's the worst kind. If someone writes something great, it's just more clarity in the world for all of us.
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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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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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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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Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it
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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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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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I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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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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Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.
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In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.
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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.
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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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Wherein we discover that many of the rules for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think.
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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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I don't mean to be flippant about cancer - it was hard, it was tough and it was scary. Then my next manuscript was about cancer because I had a whole new topic to write about. And because I wrote, it didn't take over. Writing took the chaos out of cancer.
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