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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.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Wonder
Often
Writing
Alcoholics
Drinking
Writers
Aren
Drink

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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter the act of writing does.
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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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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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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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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
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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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Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.
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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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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
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Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.
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I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.
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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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I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
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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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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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It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice.
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
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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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Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.
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