Quote

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Table
Tables
Tools
Spend
Stationery
Choose
Uptight
Writing
Carefully
Time
Store
Stores

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Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.
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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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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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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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I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.
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In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
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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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The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
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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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One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.
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I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.
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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
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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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This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.
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Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.
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Women need space and silence. We too quickly give away our energy. There's something about holding that richness.
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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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Creativity is no big deal.
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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
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