Quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert

What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail? What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant? What do you love even more than you love your own ego? How fierce is your trust in that love?

I knew then and I know now only what my heart feels to be true, you see—that without the love of our Lord, I am a wretch. This is the only miracle I can evidence, and sufficient miracle it remains for me. For others, perhaps it is not sufficient. I can scarcely fault them, for they cannot see into my heart. They cannot see the darkness that was once there, nor can they see what has replaced it. But to this day, it is the only miracle I have to offer, you see, and it is a humble one.

Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

You can't give me your shame, because it's not a thing. We fucking invented it.

There is grief below grief, she soon learned, just as there are strata below strata in the ocean floor—and even more strata below that, if one keeps digging.

I believe that our creativity grows like sidewalk weeds out of the cracks between our pathologies—not from the pathologies themselves. But so many people think it's the other way around.

My husband was sleeping in the other room, in our bed. I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress-what would be the point?

Be careful of your dignity, is what I am saying. It is not always your friend.

She reached up and touched his face. He allowed her. She explored his warm features. He had a kind face—she could feel that he did.

Which left me with nothing but a dazzled heart and the sense that I live in a most remarkable world, thick with mysteries.

We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in that way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees.

there are always two figures in a marriage, after all-two votes, two opinions, two conflicting sets of decisions, desires and limitations.

Galopamos por la vida como artistas de circo que se bambolean precariamente a lomos de dos veloces caballos; un pie va sobre el caballo llamado Destino y el otro, sobre el caballo llamado Libre Albedrío.

Sometimes I think that the difference between a tormented creative life and a tranquil creative life is nothing more than the difference between the word awful and the word interesting.

Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on.

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences...

Katie Arnold-Ratliff. Katie writes like a dream. But she told me that she'd

She also knew this: if she had to kill somebody in order to save her own life, she would do so unhesitatingly. Lastly, she knew one other thing, and this was the most important realization of all: she knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died.

Without a doubt, you were lucky to be raised here. But you never got to move here—and for that, I am sorry for you. You missed one of life's great experiences.

How could I be such a criminal jerk as to proceed this deep into a marriage, only to leave it?

To get "good" at sex—which, for a woman, means learning how to enjoy and even orchestrate the act, to the point of her own climax—one needs time, patience, and an attentive lover.

Well, you know what they say about the month of March!" said Arthur. "In like a lion, out like a lamp." Idiot.

What have I not yet learned about the futility of worry?

Beauty is not required. Beauty is accuracy's distraction.