Quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert

The trick at every turn was to endure the test of living for as long as possible. The odds of survival were punishingly slim, for the world was naught but a school of calamity and an endless burning furnace of tribulation. But those who survived the world shaped it—even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.

I had to do something about my longing, so I got up, went to the kitchen in my nightgown, peeled a pound of potatoes, boiled them up, sliced them, fried them in butter, salted them generously and ate every bite of them—asking my body the whole while if it would please accept the satisfaction of a pound of fried potatoes in lieu of the fulfillment of lovemaking.

Upanishads suggests: "People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most appropriate—and all reach You, just as rivers enter the ocean.

Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls, and time will reveal who has it

Go back far enough and you will find people who were not consumers, people who were not sitting around passively waiting for stuff to happen to them. You will find people who spent their lives making things. This is where you come from. This is where we all come from. Human beings have been creative beings for a really long time—long enough and consistently enough that it appears to be a totally natural impulse.

Everything you do, you do for God. And everything God does he do it for you.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you have to let it go. Some songs just aren't serious about wanting to be born yet, Waits said. They only want to annoy you, and waste your time, and hog your attention—perhaps while they're waiting for a different artist to come along.

Repression and denial set up elaborate games to pretend that negative thoughts and feelings are not occurring.

Where there is life, George, there is still hope. Death is so terribly final. It will come soon enough

I have many times been approached by ideas that I know are not right for me, and I've politely said to them: "I'm honored by your visitation, but I'm not your girl.

vigilant in your principles. Sacrifices will be demanded. You will be judged. If you make mistakes, you must account for them. There will be instances when you must cast aside your impulses and take a higher stance than another person—a person without honor—might take. Such instances may hurt, but that's why honor is a painful field. Do you understand?

He didn't so much teach them how to write poetry, they said, but why: because of delight. Because of stubborn gladness. He told them that they must live their most creative lives as a means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world.

And he is an actual grown man. The adult male of the species- a bit of a novelty in my experience.

It was like looking at a spot on a wall where a clock had hung for years, and seeing only an empty space. She could not train herself not to look; the emptiness surprised her every time.

ago that if I want creativity in my life—and I do—then I will have to make space for fear, too.

Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.

sabe dónde hay que comer en Roma, incluyendo una gelateria donde dan helado de pastel de arroz (y si no es eso lo que comen en el cielo, pues mejor no ir).

We could not possibly have been more different. But maybe that's where love grows best—in the deep space that exists between polarities.

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?

But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time—everything.

What the deuce does religion have to do with being a good minister? It is a profession like any other profession, young man. You fit yourself to the task, and keep your opinions private. That is what all good ministers do—or should!

I managed to fall in love with him within the space of just a few hours, which is a model of efficiency. (The young can do that kind of thing, as you must know, without difficulty. In fact, passionate love, executed in short bursts, is the natural condition of the young..)

It's only that I've waited so long to grow up, but now there's nothing worth growing up for," she said. "Just all this fighting, fighting, fighting, and working, working, working. It makes a person weary.

No te disculpes por llorar. Sin sentimientos, no somos más que robots