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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Speaking
Dignity
Teach
Truth
Writing

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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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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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.
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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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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poems are small moments of enlightenment
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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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
Natalie Goldberg
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Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.
Natalie Goldberg
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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.
Natalie Goldberg
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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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[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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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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Our job as writers is to listen, to come home to the four corners of the earth.
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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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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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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Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
Natalie Goldberg
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Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.
Natalie Goldberg
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I honor English majors. It's a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It's good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That's the best kind of love.
Natalie Goldberg