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We Always Worry That We Are Copying Someone Else, That We Don't Have Our Own Style. Don't Worry. Writing Is A Communal Act. Contrary To Popular Belief, A Writer Is Not Prometheus Alone On A Hill Full Of Fire. We Are Very Arrogant To Think We Alone Have A Totally Original Mind. We Are Carried On The Backs Of All The Writers Who Came Before Us. We Live In The Present With All The History, Ideas, And Soda Pop Of This Time. It All Gets Mixed Up In Our Writing.

-Natalie Goldberg

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We Always Worry That

Natalie Goldberg

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We Always Worry That We Are Copying Someone Else, That We Don't Have Our Own Style. Don't Worry. Writing Is A Communal Act. Contrary To Popular Belief, A Writer Is Not Prometheus Alone On A Hill Full Of Fire. We Are Very Arrogant To Think We Alone Have A Totally Original Mind. We Are Carried On The Backs Of All The Writers Who Came Before Us. We Live In The Present With All The History, Ideas, And Soda Pop Of This Time. It All Gets Mixed Up In Our Writing.

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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.

I Read Eve Ensler And Thought It Was Fabulous. Not Only That, But It Was Really The Only Thing I Could Relate To About Cancer.

Women Need Space And Silence. We Too Quickly Give Away Our Energy. There's Something About Holding That Richness.

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First Thoughts Have Tremendous Energy. The Internal Censor Usually Squelches Them, So We Live In The Realm Of Second And Third Thoughts, Thoughts On Thought, Twice And Three Times Removed From The Direct Connection Of The First Fresh Flash.

And We Can't Avoid An Inch Of Our Own Experience; If We Do It Causes A Blur, A Bleep, A Puffy Unreality. Our Job Is To Wake Up To Everything, Because If We Slow Down Enough, We See That We Are Everything.

Writing Practice Brings Us Back To The Uniqueness Of Our Own Minds And An Acceptance Of It. We All Have Wild Dreams, Fantasies, And Ordinary Thoughts. Let Us To Feel The Texture Of Them And Not Be Afraid Of Them.writing Is Still The Wildest Thing I Know.

The Deepest Secret In Our Heart Of Hearts Is That We Are Writing Because We Love The World.

Stress Is Basically A Disconnection From The Earth, A Forgetting Of The Breath.

Never Underestimate People. They Do Desire The Cut Of Truth.

You'll Lose Your Reader If You Are Vague, Not Clear, And Not Present. We Love Details, Personal Connections, Stories.

Because I've Been Doing My Practice For So Long, I Knew What To Do Even Under Really Hard Circumstances.

When We Write We Begin To Taste The Texture Of Our Own Mind

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Our Job As Writers Is To Listen, To Come Home To The Four Corners Of The Earth.

Even An Ice Cream Parlor - A Definite Advantage - Does Not Alleviate The Sorrow I Feel For A Town Lacking A Bookstore.

The Aim Is To Burn Through To First Thoughts, To The Place Where Energy Is Unobstructed By Social Politeness Or The Internal Censor, To The Place Where You Are Writing What You Mind Actually Sees And Feels, Not What It Thinks It Should See Or Feel.

The Only Failure In Writing Is When You Stop Doing It. Then You Fail Yourself.

There Is No Security, No Assurance That Because We Wrote Something Good Two Months Ago, We Will Do It Again. Actually, Every Time We Begin, We Wonder How We Ever Did It Before.

Play Around. Dive Into Absurdity And Write. Take Chances. You Will Succeed If You Are Fearless Of Failure.

Ultimately, Writing Is About Trusting Your Own Mind. It Is An Act Of Discovery.

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If I Didn't Have That, Fear And Projections Over What Was Coming Next Could Have Taken Over. But It Was Tough. Don't Think I Was An Angel. It Was Hell.

Literature Gives Us The Great Gift Of The Present Moment.

The Muscles Of Writing Are Not So Visible, But They Are Just As Powerful: Determination, Attention, Curiosity, A Passionate Heart.

Really You Don't Need More Information. If You've Lived Twenty Years, You Probably Have Enough Material For The Rest Of Your Life

As Writers We Live Life Twice, Like A Cow That Eats Its Food Once And Then Regurgitates It To Chew And Digest It Again. We Have A Second Chance At Biting Into Our Experience And Examining It. ...this Is Our Life And It's Not Going To Last Forever. There Isn't Time To Talk About Someday Writing That Short Story Or Poem Or Novel. Slow Down Now, Touch What Is Around You, And Out Of Care And Compassion For Each Moment And Detail, Put Pen To Paper And Begin To Write.

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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When You Are Present, The World Is Truly Alive.

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When You Are Not Writing, You Are A Writer Too. It Doesn't Leave You.

In Writing With Detail, You Are Turning To Face The World. It Is A Deeply Political Act, Because You Are Not Staying In The Heat Of Your Own Emotions. You Are Offering Up Some Good Solid Bread For The Hungry.

Can We Walk That Thin Line Between Constant Change And Continuation? And In The Middle Of This Flux, Feel Gratitude But Not Hold On? Gratitude Greases The Joints To Let Us Let Go, And At The Same Time To Stop And Realize We Received Something. Gratitude Is The Most Developed And Mature Of Human Emotions.

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.

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 Better Equipped To Make A Choice For Beauty, Kind Consideration And Clear Truth. We Make This Choice With Our Feet Firmly On The Ground. We Are Not Running Wildly After Beauty With Fear At Our Backs.

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Black And White

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Friends Open The Door For Me To Write. Then I Get Paid Attention To And It Allows Me To Write Other Books. The Great Spring And The Thirtieth Anniversary Of Bones Just Came Out And While I'm Happy And Excited About That, I've Already Finished A New Book. That's What Practice Does. You Don't Get Caught.

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Know That You Will Eventually Have To Leave Everything Behind; The Writing Will Demand It Of You.

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Women Are Wonderful, But They Get So Caught Up About Their Body. We Need To Unhook From Worrying So Much. When I Don't Feel Good, I Look In The Mirror And Think I Look Fat And Miserable. But When I Feel Good And Whole, I'm Not Worried About My Body Because I'm Living In It. It Doesn't Become An Object.

A Responsibility Of Literature Is To Make People Awake, Present, Alive. If The Writer Wanders, Then The Reader, Too, Will Wander.

So Writing Is Not Just Writing. It Is Also Having A Relationship With Other Writers. And Don't Be Jealous, Especially Secretly. That's The Worst Kind. If Someone Writes Something Great, It's Just More Clarity In The World For All Of Us.

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.

Knowing Who You Are

Have Compassion For Yourself When You Write. There Is No Failure - Just A Big Field To Wander In.

Whether We Know It Or Not, We Transmit The Presence Of Everyone We Have Ever Known, As Though By Being In Each Other's Presence We Exchange Our Cells, Pass On Some Of Our Lifeforce, And Then We Go On Carrying That Person In Our Body, Not Unlike Springtime When Certain Plants In Fields We Walk Through Attach Their Seeds In The Form Of Small Burrs To Our Socks, Our Pants, Our Caps, As If To Say, 'go On, Take Us With You, Carry Us To Root In Another Place.' This Is How We Survive Long After We Are Dead. This Is Why It Is Important Who We Become, Because We Pass It On.

Nobody Cares Much Whether You Write Or Not. You Just Have To Do It

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 Water.

Writing Is Not A Mcdonald's Hamburger.

I Feel Very Rich When I Have Time To Write And Very Poor When I Get A Regular Paycheck And No Time At My Real Work.

This Is What Metaphor Is. It Is Not Saying That An Ant Is An Elephant. Perhaps; Both Are Alive. No. Metaphor Is Saying The Ant Is An Elephant. Now, Logically Speaking, I Know There Is A Difference. If You Put Elephants And Ants Before Me, I Believe That Every Time I Will Correctly Identify The Elephant And The Ant. So Metaphor Must Come From A Very Different Place Than That Of The Logical, Intelligent Mind. It Comes From A Place That Is Very Courageous, Willing To Step Out Of Our Preconceived Ways Of Seeing Things And Open So Large That It Can See The Oneness In An Ant And In An Elephant.

Writing Is The Crack Through Which You Can Crawl Into A Bigger World, Into Your Wild Mind.

This Is The Practice School Of Writing. Like Running, The More You Do It, The Better You Get At It. Some Days You Don't Want To Run And You Resist Every Step Of The Three Miles, But You Do It Anyway. You Practice Whether You Want To Or Not. You Don't Wait Around For Inspiration And A Deep Desire To Run ... That's How Writing Is Too ... One Of The Main Aims In Writing Practice Is To Learn To Trust Your Own Mind And Body; To Grow Patient And Nonaggressive.

Trust In What You Love, Continue To Do It, And It Will Take You Where You Need To Go.

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.

Anything We Fully Do Is An Alone Journey.

I Hear People Say They're Going To Write. I Ask, When? They Give Me Vague Statements. Indefinite Plans Get Dubious Results. When We're Concrete About Our Writing Time, It Alleviates That Thin Constant Feeling Of Anxiety That Writers Have - We're Barbecuing Hot Dogs, Riding A Bike, Sailing Out In The Bay, Shopping For Shoes, Even Helping A Sick Friend, But Somewhere Nervously At The Periphery Of Our Perception We Know We Belong Somewhere Else - At Our Desk!

Oh, My Passion! That Is What Finally Carried Me Through. Let Passion Burn All The Way, Heating Up Every Layer Of The Psyche.

Shut Up And Write. Don't Talk About Writing, Just Physically Do It.

Failure Is What We're All Running From, We're Always Running Toward Success With Failure At Our Back.

There's No Such Thing As A Writer's Block. If You're Having Trouble Writing, Well, Pick Up The Pen And Write. No Matter What, Keep That Hand Moving. Writing Is Really A Physical Activity.

You Don't Need To Go To A Therapist, You Don't Need To Do All Kinds Of Things. If You Want To Write, You Physically Have To Do It.

Poetry Is A Dumb Buddha Who Thinks A Donkey Is As Important As A Diamond.

We Have To Look At Our Own Inertia, Insecurities, Self-hate, Fear That, In Truth, We Have Nothing Valuable To Say. When Your Writing Blooms Out Of The Back Of This Garbage Compost, It Is Very Stable. You Are Not Running From Anything. You Can Have A Sense Of Artistic Security. If You Are Not Afraid Of The Voices Inside You, You Will Not Fear The Critics Outside You.

I Still Write With Pen And Paper And Have Someone Type It On A Computer. But Rewriting I Do By Hand.

My Goal Is To Write Every Day. I Say It Is My Ideal. I Am Careful Not To Pass Judgment Or Create Anxiety If I Do Not Do It. No One Lives Up To His Ideal.

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.

The Harder You Chase Something, The Faster You Go And The Less You're Able To Let Life Meet Life. If You're Having Difficulty Coming Up With New Ideas, Then Slow Down.

Use Original Detail In Your Writing. Life Is So Rich, If You Can Write Down The Real Details Of The Way Things Were And Are, You Hardly Need Anything Else.

If You Are Not Afraid Of The Voices Inside You, You Will Not Fear The Critics Outside You.

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.

The Correctness And Quality Of What You Write Do Not Matter; The Act Of Writing Does.

We Always Worry That We Are Copying Someone Else, That We Don't Have Our Own Style. Don't Worry. Writing Is A Communal Act. Contrary To Popular Belief, A Writer Is Not Prometheus Alone On A Hill Full Of Fire. We Are Very Arrogant To Think We Alone Have A Totally Original Mind. We Are Carried On The Backs Of All The Writers Who Came Before Us. We Live In The Present With All The History, Ideas, And Soda Pop Of This Time. It All Gets Mixed Up In Our Writing.

Every Moment Is Enormous And It Is All We Have.

Let's Say I've Directed That [writing] Energy Into Writing My Latest Book But Suddenly, I Really Want To Write About An Onion. I Don't Say To Myself, "no, You Have Stay On The Subject," Because I Know That The Longer I Stay On The Subject The More Boring I Get. So, If My Mind Wants To Write About An Onion, It Might Be A Deeper Way To Go Into What I'm Working On, Even Though It Might Seem Irrelevant. This Is How I've Learned To Follow My Mind.

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 By How Few People -- People Who Supposedly Want To Write -- Read Books, And If They Read Them, How Little They Examine Them.

While I Had Cancer, I Wrote These Twenty-two Personal Essays About How I Lived My Life Backed By Zen And Writing.

Actually, Every Time We Begin, We Wonder How We Did It Before, Each Time Is A New Journey With No Maps.

That Daydreaming Seemed Important At The Time, But When I Asked My Teacher Katagiri Roshi About It, He Said, "oh, It's Just Laziness. Get To Work." But As For Discipline, I Don't Even Use That Word. I Think More About Passion Or Love. What I've Really Learned Is The Way The Mind Moves, And How The Mind Works. Rather Than Discipline, I Know How To Seduce My Mind.

Understand That Writing Is Like An Athletic Activity. To Play Tennis Well, You Expect To Keep Practicing, But For Some Reason With Writing, You Think You Should Come Out Fresh The First Time.

When I Wrote And Got Out Of The Way, Writing Did Writing.” (p.90)

I Write Because I Am Alone And Move Through The World Alone. No One Will Know What Has Passed Through Me... I Write Because There Are Stories That People Have Forgotten To Tell, Because I Am A Woman Trying To Stand Up In My Life... I Write Out Of Hurt And How To Make Hurt Okay; How To Make Myself Strong And Come Home, And It May Be The Only Real Home I'll Ever Have.

Read Books. They Are Good For Us.

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."

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.

Stress Is Basically A Disconnection From The Earth, A Forgetting Of The Breath. Stress Is An Ignorant State. It Believes That Everything Is An Emergency. Nothing Is That Important. Just Lie Down.

Stress Is An Ignorant State. It Believes That Everything Is An Emergency.

It Is Simply That Person's Time. Ours Will Come In This Lifetime Or The Next. No Matter. Continue To Practice.

Be Awake To The Details Around You, But Don't Be Self-conscious.

Trust In What You Love, Continue To Do It, And It Will Take You Where You Need To Go. And Don't Worry Too Much About Security. You Will Eventually Have A Deep Security When You Begin To Do What You Want.

All Of Us Can Create If We Allow Ourselves To.

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.

A Writer's Job Is To Give The Reader A Larger Vision Of The World.

In The West, A Teacher Imparts Knowledge To A Student. In The East, A Teacher Transmits Nothing More Or Less Than His Or Her Being.

I Remember A Friend Many Years Ago Who Had Taped A Sign To His Refrigerator: There's A Dream Dreaming Us. If You Try To Think About What That Means It Makes Your Mind Silly, But That Silliness Is Good.

We Are Important And Our Lives Are Important, Magnificent Really, And Their Details Are Worthy To Be Recorded.

Sometimes When You Think You Are Done, It Is Just The Edge Of Beginning. Probably That's Why We Decide We're Done. It's Getting Too Scary. We Are Touching Down Onto Something Real. It Is Beyond The Point When You Think You Are Done That Often Something Strong Comes Out.

I Don't Mean To Be Flippant About Cancer - It Was Hard, It Was Tough And It Was Scary. Then My Next Manuscript Was About Cancer Because I Had A Whole New Topic To Write About. And Because I Wrote, It Didn't Take Over. Writing Took The Chaos Out Of Cancer.

Sometimes People Say To Me, “i Want To Write, But I Have Five Kids, A Full-time Job, A Wife Who Beats Me, A Tremendous Debt To My Parents,” And So On. I Say To Them, “there Is No Excuse. If You Want To Write, Write. This Is Your Life. You Are Responsible For It. You Will Not Live Forever. Don’t Wait. Make The Time Now, Even If It Is Ten Minutes Once A Week."

I Consider Writing A Legitimate Zen Practice.

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.

[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.

First, Consider The Pen You Write With. It Should Be A Fast-writing Pen Because Your Thoughts Are Always Much Faster Than Your Hand. You Don't Want To Slow Up Your Hand Even More With A Slow Pen. A Ballpoint, A Pencil, A Felt Tip, For Sure, Are Slow. Go To A Stationery Store And See What Feels Good To You. Try Out Different Kinds. Don't Get Too Fancy And Expensive. I Mostly Use A Cheap Sheaffer Fountain Pen, About $1.95.... You Want To Be Able To Feel The Connection And Texture Of The Pen On Paper.

We Are Each A Concert Reverberating With Our Whole Lives And Reflecting And Amplifying The World Around Us.

We Shouldn't Forget That The Universe Moves With Us, Is At Our Back With Everything We Do.

In A Way, The Cancer Became An Ally Because It Stopped Me From Running Around So Much. I Was Able To Settle Down And Write Things I Hadn't Had A Chance To Before.

We Should Notice That We Are Already Supported At Every Moment. There Is The Earth Below Our Feet And There Is The Air, Filling Our Lungs And Emptying Them. We Should Begin From This When We Need Support.

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.

Shut Up And Write Anyway. Don't Use Anything As An Excuse.

Be Tough In The Way A Blade Of Grass Is: Rooted, Willing To Lean, And At Peace With What Is Around It.

Original Details Are Very Ordinary, Except To The Mind That Sees Extraordinariness. It's Not That We Need To Go To The Hopi Mesas To See Greatness; We Need To View What We Already Have In A Different Way.

Write What Disturbs You, What You Fear, What You Have Not Been Willing To Speak About. Be Willing To Be Split Open.

I Don't Think Everyone Wants To Create The Great American Novel, But We All Have A Dream Of Telling Our Stories-of Realizing What We Think, Feel, And See Before We Die. Writing Is A Path To Meet Ourselves And Become Intimate.

Writing Can Teach Us The Dignity Of Speaking The Truth.

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 And Over The Organic Details Of Your Life Until Some Of Them Fall Through The Garbage Of Discursive Thoughts To The Solid Ground Of Black Soil.

It's Okay To Embark On Writing Because You Think It Will Get You Love. At Least It Gets You Going, But It Doesn't Last. After A While You Realize That No One Cares That Much. Then You Find Another Reason: Money. You Can Dream On That One While The Bills Pile Up. Then You Think: "well, I'm The Sensitive Type. I Have To Express Myself." Do Me A Favor. Don't Be So Sensitive. Be Tough. It Will Get You Further Along When You Get Rejected. Finally, You Just Do It Because You Happen To Like It.

Katagiri Roshi Says: "poor Artists. They Suffer Very Much. They Finish A Masterpiece And They Are Not Satisfied. They Want To Go On And Do Another." Yes, But It's Better To Go On And Do Another If You Have The Urge Than To Start Drinking And Become Alcoholic Or Eat A Pound Of Good Fudge And Get Fat.

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.

You Live And Then You Die, I Thought. It's Good To Have Some Good Times.

The Odd Thing Is, That I Wrote The Great Spring While I Had Cancer And It's Not About Cancer. It Was After I Was Done With Cancer That I Wrote A Book About It.

As Writers We Need To Crack Open Language.

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.

Finally, If You Want To Write, You Have To Just Shut Up, Pick Up A Pen, And Do It. I'm Sorry There Are No True Excuses. This Is Our Life. Step Forward. Maybe It's Only For Ten Minutes. That's Okay. To Write Feels Better Than All The Excuses.

After You Have Finished A Piece Of Work, The Work Is Then None Of Your Business. Go On And Do Something Else.

None Of Your Business

A Writer Must Say Yes To Life.

We Must Remember That Everything Is Ordinary And Extraordinary. It Is Our Minds That Either Open Or Close.

To Stay Close And Intimate With Experience Is To Stay Close To The Mind; The Nitty Gritty Mind Of The Way Things Really Are.

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.

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.

This Is Your Life. You Are Responsible For It. You Will Not Live Forever. Don't Wait.

I Told All Kinds Of Stories About Going To Japan, About Playing Ball With My Father... I Wanted To Record My Life In Case It Was Going To End Soon. So, I Wrote That And It Was Very Comforting To Have That Practice In The Afternoons In My Living Room. I Just Wrote About My Life.

I Think Talent Is Like A Water Table Under The Earth—you Tap It With Your Effort And It Comes Through You.

Kill The Idea Of The Lone, Suffering Artist. Don't Make It Any Harder On Yourself.

When You Bring The Darkness To The Table, It Doesn't Rule You Or Hurt Other People, But When We Keep It Secret, It's Dangerous.

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Frank Moore Colby

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