Quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert

There's a reason they call God a presence ~ because God is right here , right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping.

Peg poured money into that collapsing old theater the way an indulgent heiress might pour money into the drug habit of an opium-addicted lover—which is to say bottomlessly, desperately, and uselessly.

Because for now, I just want to say that the Lily Playhouse was unlike any world I'd ever inhabited. It was a living animation of glamour and grit and mayhem and fun - a world full of adults behaving like children, in other words.

Asking no further questions is the song of my people.

Be very careful, warns this tale, not to get too obsessed with the repetition of religious ritual just for its own sake.

The classical Indian sages wrote that there are three factors which indicate whether a soul has been blessed with the highest and most auspicious luck in the universe: To have been born a human being, capable of conscious inquiry. To have been born with—or to have developed—a yearning to understand the nature of the universe. To have found a living spiritual master. There

It was an adventure. You must learn in life to take things more lightly, my dear. The world is always changing. Learn how to allow for it. Someone makes a promise, and then they break it. A play gets good notices, and then it folds. A marriage looks strong, and then they divorce. For a while there's no war, and then there's another war. If you get too upset about it all, you become a stupid, unhappy person—and where's the good in that?

This is what I've found about life, as I've gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It's not that there is ever a shortage of people—oh, heavens no. It is merely that—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

It was on the rooftop of our little bridal boutique that I learned this truth: when women are gathered together with no men around, they don't have to be anything in particular; they can just be.

No, when I refer to "creative living," I am speaking more broadly. I'm talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear. One

And any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion.

it is not the tying of the cat to the pole that has ever brought anyone to transcendence, but only the constant desire of an individual seeker to experience the eternal compassion of the divine. Flexibility is just as essential for divinity as is discipline.

this method? Yeah, sure. It works great. Till it kills you.

The world ain't straight. You grow up thinking things are a certain way. You think there are rules. You think there's a way that things have to be. You try to live straight. But the world doesn't care about your rules, or what you believe. The world ain't straight, Vivian. Never will be. Our rules, they don't mean a thing. The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think. And people just gotta keep moving through it, best they can.

This is what I've found about life, as I've gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It's not that there is ever a shortage of people—oh, heavens no. It is merely that—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. Those

Pure, clean, void, tranquil, breathless, selfless, endless, undecaying, steadfast, eternal, unborn, independent, he abides in his own greatness

I think it's a might act of human love to remind somebody that they can accomplish things by themselves, and that the world does not automatically owe them any reward, and that they are not as weak and hobbled as they may believe.

No outbreak of jealousy or malice has ever been welcomed in God's eyes." Beatrix continued, "nor shall such an outbreak ever be welcomed in the eyes of your family. If you have sentiments within you that are unpleasant or uncharitable, let them fall stillborn to the ground.

The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go. Watch the heat of the day pass into the cool night. Let go. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.

Intracranial jewelry-making! What a cool job! That's basically what we all do--all of us who spend our days making and doing interesting things for no particularly rational reason.

The world had scaled itself down into endless inches of possibility. Her life could be lived in generous miniature.

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.

We can do it, whether it can be done or not.