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I am free to write the worst junk in the world.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
World
Junk
Worst
Free
Write
Writing

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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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As writers we need to crack open language.
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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 present, the world is truly alive.
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Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.
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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 read Eve Ensler and thought it was fabulous. Not only that, but it was really the only thing I could relate to about cancer.
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The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.
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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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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
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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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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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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.
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In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
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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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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
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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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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
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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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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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