Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #1
... bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There's another wonderful Italian expression: l'arte d'arrangiarsi - the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #2
... both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish...
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #3
... most of my prayers are expressions of sheer gratitude for the fullness of my contentment.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #4
... the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #5
... the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #6
... The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world, says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #7
... to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #8
... you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #9
[C]reative living is a path for the brave.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #10
[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #11
A family in my sister's neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me about this, I could only say, shocked, Dear God, that family needs grace. She replied firmly, That family needs casseroles, and proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this IS grace.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #12
A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #13
Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore—despite...
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #14
Admittedly, I am not the one who looks fantastic in everything, but still I cannot help loving myself.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #15
All I could say was, I don't know what to do. I remember her taking me by the shoulders and looking me in the eye with a calm smile and saying simply, Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #16
All too often, those of us who choose to remain childless are accused of being somehow unwomanly or unnatural or selfish, but history teaches us that there have always been women who went through life without having babies.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #17
Also, I could finally sleep. And this was the real gift, because when you cannot sleep, you cannot get yourself out of the ditch--there's not a chance.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #18
And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. I choose to block out all the external (and internal) noise and distractions, and to come home again and again to creativity. Because without that source of wonder, I know that I am doomed. Without it, I will forever wander the world in a state of bottomless dissatisfaction—nothing but a howling ghost, trapped in a body made of slowly deteriorating meat
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #19
And we have a little herb garden, which survived the winter thanks to global warming. It makes me feel like a cool, old Italian housewife, that I kept my rosemary alive outside all winter.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #20
Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody a creative person is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the sense for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it.
If you're alive, you're a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers--these are our common ancestors.Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #21
As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once -- that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #22
As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as well, knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds, for any sad reason, change.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #23
As someone who struggles with anxiety and cowardice, as we all do, I’m profoundly inspired by. . . . full-on commitment to wonder, to wonder as a response to anguish or difficulty. It makes everything a puzzle, right? A catastrophe is nothing but a puzzle with the volume of drama turned up very high.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #24
At no moment in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #25
At that moment of realization (that union with God is always present), that's when God let me go, let me slide through His fingers with this last compassionate, unspoken message:
You may return here once you have fully come to understand that you are always here.Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #26
Back off, Jack-I got four brothers protecting my ass,' and I just rode on by him
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #27
Because I know something that you don't know. I know that this is the worst experience of your life, but I also know that someday you'll move past it and you'll be fine. And helping somebody likej you through the worst experience of her life is incredibly gratifying.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #28
Because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one's own senses, and THIS makes the senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why, Barzini says, Italians will tolerate hideously incompetent generals, presidents, tyrants, professors, bureaucrats, journalists and captain of industry, but will never tolerate incompetent opera singers, conductors, ballerinas, courtesans, actors, film directors, cooks, tailors... In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #29
Because what my gradmother did with her fine coat (the loveliest thing she would ever own) is what all women of that generation (and before) did for their families and their husbands and their children. They cut up the finest and proudest parts of themselves and gave it all away. They repatterned what was theirs and shaped it for others. They went without. They were the last ones to eat at supper, and they were the first ones to get up every morning, warming the cold kitchen for another day spent caring for everyone else. This was the only thing they knew how to do. This was their guiding verb and their defining principle of life: They gave.
Elizabeth Gilbert Quote #30
Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.
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