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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.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Back
Page
Writing
Consider
Pages
Fool
Practice
Anyone
Comes
True

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
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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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Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.
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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 don't know what you're doing. You're just hoping that people won't make fun of you. I had no idea how it would turn out.
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Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth.
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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Really you don't need more information. If you've lived twenty years, you probably have enough material for the rest of your life
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Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.
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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
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If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
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Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh.
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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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