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Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes - Page 15

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What profound reward you must glean from studying the world so closely....Too many people turn away from small wonders, I find. There is so much more potency to be found in detail than generalities, but most souls

What profound reward you must glean from studying the world so closely....Too many people turn away from small wonders, I find. There is so much more potency to be found in detail than generalities, but most souls cannot train themselves to sit still for it.

Elizabeth Gilbert
People, Profound, Soul

But when it comes to writing the thing that I've sort of been thinking about lately, is why? You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Writing, Thinking, Earth

When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of opportunities and talents - I sometimes feel as though we are all mice in a giant experimental maze, scurrying around frantically, trying to find our way through.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Opportunity, Numbers, Trying
"The Best Thing You Can Do For Yourself — And All The Women Around You" by Elizabeth Gilbert, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 11, 2015.

When I lost my friends, it was because I had used the power of giving on them recklessly. I swept into their lives with my big fat checkbook, and I erased years of obstacles for them overnight - but sometimes, in the process, I also accidentally erased years of dignity.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Years, Giving, Dignity
"Confessions of an over-giver" by Elizabeth Gilbert, www.cnn.com. March 21, 2012.

I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone. Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees and press my forehead against the floor. There, I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks. First in English. Then in Italian. And then - just to get the point across - in Sanskrit.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Letting Go, Prayer, Italian
Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.9, Bloomsbury Publishing

I cannot overstate the power of libraries in my life.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Library

Time -- when pursued like a bandit -- will behave like one; always remaining one country or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping ou 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.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Country, Hair, Doors

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Buddhist, Swings, Mind
Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.138, Bloomsbury Publishing

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Light, Darkness, Balance
Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.262, Bloomsbury Publishing

But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it? Or to nap in a garden, in a patch of sunlight, in the middle of the day, right next to your favourite fountain? And then to do it again the next day?

Elizabeth Gilbert
Ambition, Garden, Naps
Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.119, Bloomsbury Publishing

Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.Ours is an entertainment seeking-nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one....This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Vacation, Pleasure Seeking, Relax

Then my mother shocked me. She said, " All those things that you want from your relationship, Liz? I have always wanted those things too." [She] showed me the handful of bullets she'd had to bite over the decades in order to stay happily married (and she was happily married...) to my father. "You have to understand how little I was raised to expect that I desired in life, honey. Remember- I come from a different time and place... and you have to understand how much I love your father.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Mother, Father, Order

Embrace the beautiful mess that you are.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Beautiful, Embrace, Beautiful Mess

Ketut, why is life all crazy like this?" I asked my medicine man the next day...So what can we do about the craziness of the world?" Nothing." Ketut laughed, but with a dose of kindness. "This is nature of world. This is destiny. Worry about your craziness only-make you in peace.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Kindness, Crazy, Destiny

Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for giant squid, I cannot have a baby.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Baby, Squids, Giants
Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.11, Bloomsbury Publishing

There's nothing special about your fear.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Special

The mosquitoes here are big enough to rape a chicken.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Mosquitoes, Enough, Bigs

I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Jesus, Morning, Stupid

I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, actually, some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny... I forgive him everything.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Hate, Dirty, Book

It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers, and I grew up in a very funny, conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didn't have much to do with reality.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Reality, House, Parent

Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love - may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State, and that it sometimes takes a very long while for the State to grant you your leave.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Bad Relationship, Law, Long
Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace With Marriage”, p.11, A&C Black

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
Winter, Italian, Garden
"Elizabeth Gilbert Serves Up a New Classic". Interview with Michael Hainey, www.gq.com. May 24, 2012.

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
War, Heart, Agreement

Here's the thing: the unit of reverence in Europe is the family, which is why a child born today of unmarried parents in Sweden has a better chance of growing up in a house with both of his parents than a child born to a married couple in America. Here we revere the couple, there they revere the family.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Children, Growing Up, Couple

I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a black president or a female president than an unmarried president.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Thinking, America, Black

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