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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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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 77
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Running
School
Better
Writing
Like
Practice

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.
Natalie Goldberg
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Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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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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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
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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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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When you write, don't say, I'm going to write a poem. That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself say, I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
Natalie Goldberg
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When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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Creativity is no big deal.
Natalie Goldberg
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Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.
Natalie Goldberg
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In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
Natalie Goldberg
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Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
Natalie Goldberg