Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes (138 Quotes)

I think I deserve something beautiful.

Inevitably even the most original new ideas will eventually harden into dogma or stop working for everybody.

Oh my God, baby, you are in so much trouble.

The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, Let go.

Traditionally, I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all religions. I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky, but instead abides very close to us indeed- much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts.

Why must everything be repeat and repeat, never finish, never resting? You work so hard one day, but the next day you must only work again. You eat, but the next day, you are already hungry. You find love, then love goes away. You are born with nothing, you work hard, then you die with nothing. You are young, then you are old. No matter how hard you work, you cannot stop getting old. - Wayan

Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship - a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.

He is only happy when he can maintain himself - mentally and spiritually - at the intersection between a vertical line and horizontal one, in a state of perfect balance. For this, he needs to know where he is located every moment, both in his relationship to the divine and to his family here on earth. If he loses that balance, he loses his power.

I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business?

It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated.

Oh, cold world -- I have grown so weary of you and all your horrible bathrooms.

The gods are fond of the cryptic and dislike the evident.

Traveling-to-a-place energy and living-in-a-place energy are two fundamentally different energies

Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years--I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue.

Devotion is diligence without assurace...If faith were rational, it wouldn't be by definition-faith...Faith is walking face-first and full speed into the dark.

How could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn't it?

I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it's all OK because he is so loved. He is surrounded by souls who would do anything to help him. And not only that--he has wisdom and patience of his own, buried deep inside his being, which will only reveal themselves over time and will always carry him through any trial. He is a gift from God to all of us.

It's also important to read the newspaper every day to see how the pope is doing. Here in Rome, the pope's health is recorded daily in the newspaper, very much like weather, or the TV schedule. Today the pope is tired. Yesterday, the pope was less tired than he is today. Tomorrow, we expect that the pope will not be so tired as he was today.

One of these poems I wrote after having been here only a month. The other, I wrote this morning. In the space between the two poems, I have found acres of grace

The Hopi Indians thought that the world's religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join. When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of this dark cycle of history and into the next realm.

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.

Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on to that experience forever.

Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.

I am a better person when I have less on my plate.

I want to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two. It was only later, after admitting this dream, that I noticed the happy coincidence that all these countries begin with the letter I. A fairly auspicious sign, it seemed, on a voyage of self-discovery.

Kalos Kai Agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful.

Only the young and stupid are confident about sex and romance.

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.

Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.

You have no idea how strong my love is!

A lovely evening of new idioms and fresh mozzarella.

Even if you are eighty years old, or a lesbian, or a strident feminist, or a nun, or an eighty-year-old strident feminist lesbian nun who has never been married and never intends to get married, the politest possible answer is still:"Not yet.

I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don't know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do...

I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.

Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.

Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One.

The little fishing boat anchors right off the shore of Gili Meno. There are no docks here on this island. You have to roll up your pants, jump off the boat and wade in through the surf on your own power. There's absolutely no way to do this without getting soaking wet or even banged up on the coral, but it's worth all the trouble because the beach here is so beautiful, so special

We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.

You make some big grandoise decision about what you need to do, or who you need to be, and then circumstances arise that immediately reveal to you how little you understood about yourself.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...

Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there's no reason to add to everyone's misery by looking miserable yourself.

I am the planet's most affectionate life-form, something like the cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle.

I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check.

Let your conscience be your guide.

Our relationship now thoroughly ruined, with even civility destroyed between us, all I wanted anymore was the door.

The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement.

Well, I always tried to look nice and be feminine even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there's no reason to add to everyone's misery by looking miserable yourself. That's my philosophy. This is why I always wore makeup and jewelry into the jungle-nothing too extravagant, but maybe just a nice gold bracelet and some earrings, a little lipstick, good perfume. Just enough to show that I still had my self-respect.

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.

At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.

Every word was a singing sparrow, a magic trick, a truffle for me. The words made me laugh in delight.