Natalie Goldberg Quotes

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess.

I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.

I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls.

Whenever I started writing music, it just naturally led itself there. As I started to tell my story, it's where my home was. It's just a very natural choice.

The man who does not wish to belong to the mass needs only to cease taking himself easily; let him follow his conscience, which calls to him: "Be your self! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.

If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.

I loved the Brazilian music I played. But this is finally me. For the first time I think it's really me.

I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from.

To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.

I tend to play in a way that feels natural to me. To me that's authentic for myself. I play by where I'm led by some sense of where I feel I'm supposed to be.

I hardly ever think about audience. I just try to tell a story for me. I write the kind of story I would like to read.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

I write what I'm interested in.

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah.

I like to write when I feel I'm the real me.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

My biggest challenge was to make sure that the songs I did were who I am.

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.