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One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Life
Story
Process
Inspirational
Doesn
Stories
Matter
Writing
Poem
Way
Matters

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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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.
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.
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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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It’s much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms.
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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Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.
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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We should notice that we are already supported at every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support.
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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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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Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.
Natalie Goldberg
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The problem is we think we exist.
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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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
Natalie Goldberg
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We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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