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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Finally
Write
Writing
Shut

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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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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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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Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.
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When you are present, the world is truly alive.
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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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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
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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.
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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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I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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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.
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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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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter the act of writing does.
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First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
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I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.
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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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As writers we need to crack open language.
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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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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
Natalie Goldberg