AtomicQuote

Natalie Goldberg Quote

Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.) Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Don’t think. Don’t get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

Natalie Goldberg

Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.) Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Don’t think. Don’t get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

Tags: grammar, line, margin, punctuation, spelling

Related Quotes

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

Tags: advice, advice for writers, advice to writers, amwriting, aphorism, aphorisms, book, books, daily ritual, daily rituals

What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles...

Terry Jones

What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles...

Tags: bush, bushism, grammar, politics, terrorism

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

Lynne Truss

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

Tags: english language, grammar, humor, lynne truss, punctuation, sentence structure

Youir're doing this wrong.

Will Advise

Youir're doing this wrong.

Tags: british humour, grammar, humour, spelling, wrong, you are, you re, youir re

People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.

B.R. Myers

People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.

Tags: clarity of thought, grammar, language

Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, I'll be dead, you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's h...

Margaret Atwood

Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, I'll be dead, you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's h...

Tags: religion, scifi, the year of the flood, grammar, immortality

Write like you speak with the 'rhythms of human speech,' as William Zinsser said, and in as few words as possible. Use action verbs to carry water.

Sandra E. Lamb

Write like you speak with the 'rhythms of human speech,' as William Zinsser said, and in as few words as possible. Use action verbs to carry water.

Tags: apology, application, business, edit, email, etiquette, forgiveness, grammar, interview, letters

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.

Douglas Adams

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.

Tags: grammar, grammar humor, humor, humour, science fiction, space travel, star trek references

Evolution did not design us to believe only true facts, nor to buy only useful products, nor to say only meaningful sentences

Piero Scaruffi

Evolution did not design us to believe only true facts, nor to buy only useful products, nor to say only meaningful sentences

Tags: capitalism, commercial, consumerism, evolution, grammar, intellect, meaning, philosophy, products, science

Deleuze and Guattari have been totally misunderstood because the following has been wrenched from context: "Forming grammatically correct sentences is for the normal individual the prerequisite for an...

Gilles Deleuze

Deleuze and Guattari have been totally misunderstood because the following has been wrenched from context: "Forming grammatically correct sentences is for the normal individual the prerequisite for an...

Tags: fascism, grammar, language, misquoting, prescriptive versus descriptive, wrenching from context
About Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg (born January 4, 1948) is an American popular author and speaker. She is best known for a series of books which explore writing as Zen practice.