Quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

I would neither defend myself from him, nor would I fight him. For the longest time, against the counsel of all who cared about me, I resisted even consulting a lawyer, because I considered even that to be an act of war. I wanted to be all Gandhi about this. I wanted to be all Nelson Mandela about this. Not realizing at the time that both Gandhi and Mandela were lawyers.

but truly there were times when the sadness of this world was scarcely to be endured

to assemble a plan for

But why must everything have a practical application? I'd been such a diligent soldier for years--working, producing, never missing a deadline, taking care of my loved ones, my gums, and my credit record, voting, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to only be about duty?

as the years pass—there comes to be a terrible shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history.

If I'd known then what I know now—namely: that so many of those beautiful young boys would soon be lost to the battlefields of Europe or to the infernos of the South Pacific—I would have had sex with even more of them. If it sounds like I'm being facetious, I'm not.

My truth is not a condemnation of yours.

What does being on the top have to do with vocation? What does it have to do with the pursuit of love? What does it have to do with the strange communion between the human and the magical? What does it have to do with faith? What does it have to do with the quiet glory of merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations?

Without it, you will never push yourself out of the suffocating insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the beautiful and the unexpected.

But I was supposed to want to have a baby.

How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer - you can finish the business yourself, from withing yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential.

every single pursuit—no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem—comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects.

Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time - when pursued like a bandit - will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you.

There are bugs and snakes and rodents.

como dice García Márquez, se parece al amor, pero sin los problemas del amor.

Read your Bible, child; this world is not a paradise but a vale of tears.

Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me. Just say what you want to say, then, and say it with all your heart. Share whatever you are driven to share. If it's authentic enough, believe me—it will feel original.

I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing, because over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills.

To which she had replied, "There is nothing I would rather not talk about, Billy, and nobody whom I would rather not talk about it with!

The time we spent together happened outside of the world, is how it felt.

Work with all your heart, because - I promise 0 if you show up for your work day after day after day, you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom.

El amor desesperado consiste en inventarse un personaje, exigir a la persona amada que lo represente y hundirnos en la miseria cuando se niega a convertirse en ese ser de ficción.

I met an old lady once, almost one hundred years old, and she told me, There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history: How much do you love me? and Who's in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering.