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Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
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Brooklyn
New York
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Mystery
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Poetry
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The problem is we think we exist.
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We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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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.
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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.
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If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.
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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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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
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Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.
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When you are present, the world is truly alive.
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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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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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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.
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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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Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.
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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
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poems are small moments of enlightenment
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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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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 still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.
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