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Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Home
Come
Corners
Writers
Listen
Four
Jobs
Earth

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.
Natalie Goldberg
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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
Natalie Goldberg
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After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.
Natalie Goldberg
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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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[T]he one thing I want for you is to recognize when you are really singing in writing practice and honor that. Trust that. When you were screaming on the page. Maybe that doesn't make a whole book but that is the true seed.
Natalie Goldberg
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Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.
Natalie Goldberg
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While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
Natalie Goldberg
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When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg