Quote

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.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Matter
Orderly
Right
Drop
Trying
Legs
Make
Lose
Love
Loses
Life
Middle
Dies
Fall
Jars

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.
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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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I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.
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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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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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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 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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I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.
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It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.
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Writing is not a McDonald's Hamburger.
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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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Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.
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When you write, don't say, I'm going to write a poem. That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself say, I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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Really you don't need more information. If you've lived twenty years, you probably have enough material for the rest of your life
Natalie Goldberg
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
Natalie Goldberg
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It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.
Natalie Goldberg