Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?

... to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.

Loneliness watches and sights, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over... himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He’s going to make me sleep with him again tonight, i just know it.

So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience.

Step forward out of your own lingering residual sense of smallness, take up every inch of life that is your blessed inheritance, and DO YOUR THING.

You learn to smile even in you liver?''Even in my lire, Ketut. Big smile in my liver.

I wanted to call a time out, to demand that everybody just STOP until I could understand everything.

Well... "why" is a hard question to answer in any language.

I am openly prideful, secretly judgemental, and cowardly in conflict.

And always remember that people's judgements about you are none of your business.

We must all get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something

The more unsettled and unbalanced we feel, the more quickly and recklessly we are likely to fall in love.

This much I do know - I'm exhausted by the cumulative consequences of a lifetime of hasty choices and chaotic passions.

Nothing is so essential as dignity. Time will reveal who has it and wi has it not." -Beatrix Whittaker

Most of my writing life consist of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor. I sit at my desk and I work like a farmer, and that's how it gets done.

The other day in prayer I said to God, "Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?".

Bravery means doing something scary.

Psychologists suggest that we must reach back at least three generations to look for clues whenever we begin untangling the emotional legacy of any one family's history.

The Buddha taught that most problems - if only you give them enough time and space - will eventually wear themselves out.

There was no better path to autonomy for an ambitious young businesswoman than to be married off to a respectable corpse.

Yeah, baby! And you are the magnet and I'm the steel! Bring to me your leather, take from me my lace!

What kind of God do you believe in? my answer is easy: I believe in a magnificent God

We need courage to take ourselves seriously, to look closely and without flinching, to regard the things that frighten us in life and art with wonder.

At some point, you really just have to finish your work and release it as is-if only so you can go on and make other things with a glad and determined heart.

Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say - no detail spared in the quest for perfection.

At no point in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning.

During my first few weeks in Italy, all my Protestant synapses were zinging in distress, looking for a task. I wanted to take on pleasure like a homework assignment, or a giant science fair project.

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.

... both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish...

... the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity.

It may seem a simple pleasure to spoil our children with a treat of sugar, but that pleasure becomes a sin when the sugar was grown by human beings held in unspeakable misery.

If you really want to get to know someone, you have to divorce him.

Fear--who cares?

Don't we have the right to not stop seeking until we get as close to the source of wonder as possible? Even if it means coming to India and kissing trees in the moonlight for awhile.

But I love him.""So love him.""But I miss him.""So miss him. Send him love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it.

Her solitary nature means she needs a family to keep her from loneliness my gregarious nature means I will never have to worry about being alone...

Just say what you want to say . . . and say it with all your heart.

Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away...meditate and teach your heart that this is destiny.” - Wayan

You can let yourself off the hook anytime you want, Liz. That's the divine contract of a little something we call free will.

sometimes the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else - Richard

You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.

Religious ceremonies are of paramount importance in Bali ( an island, don't forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it-you would pray, too).

... the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.

You know, why at the end of your life should you assemble thousands of pages of 'Why am I so sad, why am I so depressed?' Instead, assemble thousands of pages of why you're so content.

Marriage is not simply a romantic union between two people it's also a political and economic contract of the highest order.