We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway... Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing. Natalie Goldberg
About This Quote

In his book, Writing as a Way of Knowing, pedagogues and writer Amit Majmudar and poet Billy Collins discuss the possibilities of writing as a form of healing. In their essay, "In Search of the Core of Our Lives," they write: “We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway to that understanding.”

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More Quotes By Natalie Goldberg
  1. The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...

  2. Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

  3. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how...

  4. 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...

  5. Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.

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