Natalie Goldberg Quotes

I've always found the Write-What-You-Know axiom small and stifling.

The secret is to write just anything, to dare to write just anything, because when you write just anything, you begin to say what is important.

I don't write to a genre.

Don't let anyone tell you there's only one way to write.

I think writing gives me creative freedom.

I prefer writing originals.

I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

When aspiring writers ask me about how they should target their writing, I tell them to pay no attention to that kind of thing. It will restrict you. You will end up falling into stereotypes in an effort to tailor your work toward a perceived genre category.

Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

I just write books, and I do it without any notion of what I should do or shouldn't do.

When I'm happiest writing is just not knowing where it goes and just let the characters bring you there.

Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imagination's curious intricacies, to be what you were, what you are, what you will be, and what everyone else is or was or will be, too.

When I write, I work off of a theme, an emotion, a narrative - thinking of it and then expounding on it.

Bad writing as a conscious goal is liberating for students: They are freed to be creative in a new and different way.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

I think one of the keys to better writing is releasing all of your ideas and to not be afraid. Dream big. This could be the greatest novel in the world you know.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

When I sit down to write, I just let the goose out of the bottle.

The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day.

I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.

When I decide to write a story, I don't think too much about what I want it to be, I just let things come naturally and this is how it turns out. It's just how my subconscious works.

When I write a story, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I want to share something with my readers. The whole idea of writing is this place where you lose control, where you're irresponsible - it's a very liberating place.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'