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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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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Really
Maybe
Seed
Make
Practice
Page
Doesn
Seeds
True
Recognize
Book
Pages
Whole
Singing
Writing
Honor
Thing
Trust
Screaming

More quotes by Natalie Goldberg

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Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.
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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.
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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
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Even an ice cream parlor - a definite advantage - does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore.
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I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.
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The first thing is how awful cancer was, the experience. When you first go through it, you're just trying to survive. But when I wrote about it, I really digested it. It was unbearable but I had practice behind me.
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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.
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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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Indefinite plans get dubious results.
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I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren't writing. It is not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing.
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Wherein we discover that many of the rules for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think.
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The difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle.
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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
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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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Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.
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Creativity is no big deal.
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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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I have students that I tell, If your book doesn't sell or you can't publish it, write another book. Quit sitting around. The publishing world is a business, but it's not any big deal. An editor is not your guru. Your agent is not your guru.
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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.
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I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.
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