Direct Quote by Natalie Goldberg

“I don't know anything but writing practice, and so what I really do is direct that energy as if it were flowing down a river.”

Natalie Goldberg

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Direct Energy Ifs Knows Practice Rivers Writing

More by Natalie Goldberg

“We heard about people who go back to their roots. That is good, but don't get stuck in the root. There is the branch, the leaf, the flower - all reaching toward the immense sky. We are many things. In Israel looking for my "roots", I realized that while I was a Jew, I was also an American, a feminist,…

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Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning. We should not be ashamed of this. It is good. It's like drinking…

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I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my…

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Actually, when I look at my old notebooks, I think I have been a bit self-indulgent and have given myself too much time to meander in my discursive thoughts. I could have cut through sooner. Yet it is good to know about our terrible selves, not laud or criticize them, just acknowledge them. Then, out of this knowledge, we are…

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Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over…

Natalie Goldberg

Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.

Natalie Goldberg

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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.

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…

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“When you draw and pay attention to what is, it's a form of being present. This inspires the mind, makes it happy, and the…

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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I told all kinds of stories about going to Japan, about playing ball with my father... I wanted to record my life in case…

Natalie Goldberg

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“No matter what a person does to cover up and conceal themselves, when we write and lose control, I can spot a person from Alabama, Florida, South Carolina a mile away even if they make no exact reference to location. Their words are lush like the land they come from, filled with nine aunties, people named Bubba. There is something…

Natalie Goldberg

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One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is…

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Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing…

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The method of magnitude estimation provided a direct measure of sensation.

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A place has almost the shyness of a person, with strangers; and its secret is not to be surprised by a too direct interrogation.

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The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from…

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I'm currently trying to direct my own material.

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By the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something…

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There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine: This living, this living, this living, Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work is the province of cattle,…

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If you take all the food aid, America is by far the most generous country. If you take the direct aid, we're very generous. But when you add on our private contributions - see, our tax system encourages private citizens to donate to organisations that, for example, help the folks in Africa. And when you take the combined effort of…

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