Quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert

is no love which does not become help," taught the theologian Paul Tillich.)

Stones grow. Plants grow and live. Animals grow, live, and feel").

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you."—Gospel of Thomas.)

I was now inclined to believe that ideas also have wit, because what had transpired between Ann and me was not only phenomenal, but also curiously and charmingly funny.

How do you negotiate once you've offered everything?

We don't have time for perfect.

she would like to spend as much time as possible in such a state of transcendence while she is still here on earth. That's all. That's what I call creative living.

Felipe seemed increasingly stuck in that awful breed of mood where any glitch or hassle whatsoever becomes almost physically intolerable. This was unfortunate, because traveling—particularly the cheap and dirty traveling we were undertaking—is pretty much nothing but one glitch and hassle after another, interrupted by the occasional stunning sunset

Why am I here? What have I been called to do? How am I getting in my own way? How can I best live out my destiny?

when I was nineteen years old and an idiot

There were a few years there, lost in borderless despair, when I used to experience all the world's sadness as my own.

Onward ever, backward never.

He said if Maria had truly allowed herself to be overcome by anger—which she never does, because she's a good Anglo-Protestant—then she would have written all over that wall in her native English. He says all Americans are like this: repressed. Which makes them dangerous and potentially deadly when they do blow up. "A savage people," he diagnoses.

He told them that they must live their most creative lives as a means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world.

Tan malo como el tabaco para los pulmones es el rencor para el alma;

Good morning, Mr. Herbert," I said. "I stand ready to review any evidence of it," he replied, without lifting his forehead from the table. "How are you feeling today?" I asked. "Blithesome. Glorious. Exalted. I'm a sultan in his palace." He still hadn't lifted his head. "How's the script coming along?" "Be a humanitarian, Vivian, and stop asking questions.

The only thing that matters now is what you leave 'em with. If you drop this thing in the middle of the second act, they'll forget that they ever loved you. You've gotta earn it all over again now.

The world ain't straight, Vivian. Never will be. Our rules, the don't mean a thing. The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think.

We stared at each other for a while. There was a good deal of information conveyed across the silence, a whole conversation, you might say. This is what flirtation is in its purest form, a conversation held without words. Flirtation is a series of silent questions that one person asks another person with their eyes. And the answer to those questions is always the same word: Maybe.

But a lot of people don't know exactly what their passion is or they might have multiple passions or they may be going through mid-life change of passion. All of which can leave them feeling confused and blocked and insecure.

Nor did it occur to me that I couldn't keep a showgirl in my bedroom as a pet, just because I felt like it.

Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes. [Author was quoting Jack Gilbert, which he reportedly had said to a student]

say, this is literally a pedestrian

People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they're wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it.