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When you are present, the world is truly alive.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Truly
Present
Alive
World

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.
Natalie Goldberg
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Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning. We should not be ashamed of this. It is good. It's like drinking water.
Natalie Goldberg
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
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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Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.
Natalie Goldberg
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This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
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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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.
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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It’s much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
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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Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.
Natalie Goldberg
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Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it
Natalie Goldberg