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We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Mind
Minds
Ordinary
Close
Either
Open
Remember
Everything
Must
Extraordinary

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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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Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
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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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Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
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Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment.
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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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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 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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While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.
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I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.
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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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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
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I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.
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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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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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Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
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Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.
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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.
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Writing is not a McDonald's Hamburger.
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In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.
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