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As A Writer, You Always Read In Two Minds: You Read As A Reader And You Enjoy It, And You Look At It As A Writer, And You Just Admire The Architecture And The Construction.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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As A Writer, You

Elizabeth Gilbert

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As A Writer, You Always Read In Two Minds: You Read As A Reader And You Enjoy It, And You Look At It As A Writer, And You Just Admire The Architecture And The Construction.

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The Only Thing More Unthinkable Than Leaving Was Staying; The Only Thing More Impossible Than Staying Was Leaving.

I Can See How The Authorities Could Not Like Todd [ Willingham], Because He's Not A Person Who Is Going To Give You Respect If You Don't Deserve It Just Because You Say Something.

If We Never Leave Our House Except To Drive To Work, Do We Need To Be Even Remotely Aware Of This Powerful, Humbling, Extraordinary And Eternal Life Force That Surges And Ebbs Around Us All The Time? Apparently Not. Because We Have Stopped Paying Attention.

Modern Marriage Is First And Foremost A Romantic And Private Union, But The Tax Laws And Inheritance Laws And Religious Implications That Still Surround This Institution Indicate That Marriage Has Evolved Without Casting Away Its Earlier Purposes Or Assumptions. It's Like We Just Keep Building On This Thing, Piling New Advancements On The Old Model.

Do You Think There's Any Way Humans Can Love Each Other Without Complication?

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 Do Not Need To Love You To Prove That I Love Myself!!

You Almost Can't Wait Too Long [to Get Married]. The Longer You Wait, The Better Off You Are Going To Be. And The Happier Your Kids Are Going To Be, And The Happier A Mom You Are Going To Be.

Why They Always Look So Serious In Yoga? You Make Serious Face Like This, You Scare Away Good Energy. To Meditate, Only You Must Smile. Smile With Face, Smile With Mind, And Good Energy Will Come To You And Clean Away Dirty Energy. Even Smile In Your Liver. Practice Tonight At Hotel. Not To Hurry, Not To Try Too Hard. Too Serious, You Make You Sick. You Can Calling The Good Energy With A Smile. (from Ketut Liyer, The Balinese Healer)

When A Man Who Looks Like Yoda Hands You A Prophecy, You Have To Respond.

[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.

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience With God. Sometimes I Feel Like I Understand The Divinity Of This World, But Then I Loose It Because I Get Distracted By My Petty Desires And Fears. I Want To Be With God All The Time. But I Don't Want To Be A Monk, Or Totally Give Up Worldly Pleasures. I Guess What I Want To Learn Is How To Leave In This World And Enjoy Its Delights, But Also Elevate Myself To God.

What If We Just Acknowledged That We Have A Bad Relationship, And We Stuck It Out, Anyway? What If We Admitted That We Make Each Other Nuts, We Fight Constantly And Hardly Ever Have Sex, But We Can't Live Without Each Other, So We Deal With It? And Then We Could Spend Our Lives Together - In Misery, But Happy To Not Be Apart.

Bad Relationship

Sanity And Clarity Are More Important For Me And I'm Willing To Give Up A Lot Of Shimmer For It. I'm Willing To Have More Boring Friends, Who Are Sane.

The Bhagavad Gita—that Ancient Indian Yogic Text—says That It Is Better To Live Your Own Destiny Imperfectly Than To Live An Imitation Of Somebody Else’s Life With Perfection. So Now I Have Started Living My Own Life. Imperfect And Clumsy As It May Look, It Is Resembling Me Now, Thoroughly.

What I Think Is Amazing Is Not That 85% Of People Who Get Married Under The Age Of 25 Get Divorced, It's That 15% Of Them Stay Together. How Did They Manage To Pull That Off? You Almost Can't Wait Too Long. It's The Single Simplest Measure To Predict Divorce.

We’re Miserable Because We Think That We Are Mere Individuals, Alone With Our Fears And Flaws And Resentments And Mortality. We Wrongly Believe That Our Limited Little Egos Constitute Our Whole Entire Nature. We Have Failed To Recognize Our Deeper Divine Character.

God Is An Experience Of Supreme Love.

Destiny, I Feel, Is Also A Relationship - A Play Between Divine Grace And Willful Self-effort.

You Must Find Another Reason To Work, Other Than The Desire For Success Or Recognition. It Must Come From Another Place.

Desire For Success

Tis' Better To Live Your Own Life Imperfectly Than To Imitate Someone Else's Perfectly.

To Devote Yourself To The Creation And Enjoyment Of Beauty, Then, Can Be A Serious Business-not Always Necessarily A Means Of Escaping Reality, But Sometimes A Means Of Holding On To The Real When Everything Is Flaking Away Into... Rhetoric And Plot.

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.

Women Are Capable Of Enduring A Tremendous Amount Of Disappointment And Still Have A Good Life.

Writing Is Not Like Dancing Or Modeling; It's Not Something Where-if You Missed It By Age 19-you're Finished. It's Never Too Late. Your Writing Will Only Get Better As You Get Older And Wiser. If You Write Something Beautiful And Important, And The Right Person Somehow Discovers It, They Will Clear Room For You On The Bookshelves Of The World-at Any Age. At Least Try.

In Desperate Love, We Always Invent The Characters Of Our Partners, Demanding They Be What We Need Of Them, And Then Feeling Devastated When They Refuse To Perform The Role We Created In The First Place.

Todd's Mother Had Several Children By Different Fathers, And Todd [willingham] Had Been Abandoned In California. ... He's A Good-looking Man. He Was A Witty Man, You Know? Funny, Caring. He Wasn't Arrogant, But He Was Kind Of Set In His Ways. If He Thought Something, It Was One Way. You Could Show Him An Alternative, But He Was Still Going To Stick By His Particular View. But I Could See How To Women He Could Be A Very Charming, Good-looking Guy, Especially When He Was Younger.

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. And I Do Believe That If Your Culture Or Tradition Doesn't Have The Specific Ritual You Are Craving, Then You Are Absolutely Permitted To Make Up A Ceremony Of Your Own Devising, Fixing Your Own Broken-down Emotional Systems With All The Do-it-yourself Resourcefulness Of A Generous Plumber/poet.

One Must Always Be Prepared For Riotous And Endless Waves Of Transformation.

I Consider A Good Dinner Party At Our House To Be Where People Drink And Eat More Than They're Meant To.

This Person Had Arrived, He Had Illuminated Her, He Had Ensorcelled Her With Notions Of Miracle And Beauty, He Had Both Understood And Misunderstood Her, He Had Married Her, He Had Broken Her Heart, He Had Looked Upon Her With Those Sad And Hopeless Eyes, He Had Accepted His Banishment, And Now He Was Gone. What A Stark And Stunning Thing Was Life- That Such A Cataclysm Can Enter And Depart So Quickly, And Leave Such Wreckage Behind!

There Was Really Only One Person Who - And I Remember To This Day - He Was A Fireman, And He Said, "you'll Never Know What You'll Do When You're In A Fire." Everyone Else Was Like: "i Don't Care; I Would Have Saved My Children; I Could Have Done It. Even If I Was Asleep I Would Have Woken Up And Saved My Children." But The Fireman Said, "you Never Know What's Going To Happen Unless You're In There."

There's Always Another Level Up. There's Always Another Ascension. More Grace, More Light, More Generosity, More Compassion, More To Shed, More To Grow.

The Yogic Sages Say That All The Pain Of A Human Life Is Caused By Words, As Is All The Joy. We Create Words To Define Our Experience And Those Words Bring Attendant Emotions That Jerk Us Around Like Dogs On A Leash. We Get Seduced By Our Own Mantras (i'm A Failure I'm Lonely I'm A Failure I'm Lonely) And We Become Monuments To Them. To Stop Talking For A While, Then, Is To Attempt To Strip Away The Power Of Words, To Stop Choking Ourselves With Words, To Liberate Ourselves From Our Suffocating Mantras.

I Had A Great Teacher In India Who Said To Me, 'if You Think You're Spiritual And Evolved And Enlightened, Go Home For Christmas.'

A Lot Of [erotica] Was Really Interestingly Disguised In The 19th-century As Medical Journals. So It Would Be In The Voice Of A Learned Doctor Talking About Somebody's Pathologies. And Then It Would Get Really Detailed. And Then It Would Get Really Sweaty. And Then You're Like, "this Isn't A Doctor! I Would Like To See A Degree, Mister!"

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.

Bad Relationship

I've Never Seen Any Life Transformation That Didn't Begin With The Person In Question Finally Getting Tired Of Their Own Bullshit.

Your Home Is Whatever In This World You Love More Than You Love Yourself. So That Might Be Creativity, Family, Invention, Adventure, Faith, Service, It Might Be Raising Corgies, I Don't Know - Your Home Is That Thing To Which You Can Dedicate Your Energies With Such Singular Devotion That The Ultimate Results Become Inconsequential.

If Todd [willingham] Was Guilty Of Anything, It Was Just His Self-preservation. He Got Up And Ran Out Of The House And Then Thought About The Children After The Fact.

I Love My Friends And Family, But I Also Love It When They Can't Find Me And I Can Spend All Day Reading Or Walking All Alone, In Silence, Eight Thousand Miles Away From Everyone. All Alone And Unreachable In A Foreign Country Is One My Most Favorite Possible Things To Be.

That's Your Friend. My Husband Is My Best Friend. He's Not The Mirror That Holds Up My Flaws. He's Just The Guy Who's Like, 'i Think You're Terrific'... It's Just Simple, Showing Up For Each Other.

Liz, You Must Be Very Polite With Yourself When You Are Learning Something New.

Learning Something New

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.

If Something Is Rubbing So Hard Against You, You Can Be Sure It's Working On You.

If I Am To Truly Become An Autonomous Woman, Then I Must Take Over That Role Of Being My Own Guardian.

He Endeared Himself To Me Forever The First Night We Met, When I Was Getting Frustrated With My Inability To Find The Words I Wanted In Italian, And He Put His Hand On My Arm And Said, "liz, You Must Be Very Polite With Yourself When You Are Learning Something New.

You Must Stop Looking At The World Through Your Head. You Must Look Through Your Heart, Instead.

That's Just Your Ego, Trying To Make Sure It Stays In Charge. This Is What Ego Does. It Keeps You Feeling Separate, Keeps You With A Sense Of Duality, Tries To Convince You That You're Flawed And Broken And Alone Instead Of Whole.

But He [depression] Just Gives Me That Dark Smile, Settles Into My Favorite Chair, Puts His Feet On My Table And Lights A Cigar, Filling The Place With His Awful Smoke. Loneliness Watches And Sighs, Then Climbs Into My Bed And Pulls The Covers Over Himself, Fully Dressed, Shoes And All. He's Going To Make Me Sleep With Him Again Tonight, I Just Know It.

Where Did You Get The Idea You Aren't Allowed To Petition The Universe With Prayer? You Are Part Of This Universe, Liz. You're A Constituent--you Have Every Entitlement To Participate In The Actions Of The Universe, And To Let Your Feelings Be Known. So, Put Your Opinion Out There. Make Your Case. Believe Me--it Will At Least Be Taken Into Consideration.

For If There Is One Thing I Have Learned Over The Years About Men, It Is That Feelings Of Powerlessness Do Not Usually Bring Forth Their Finest Qualities.

I Can Honestly Say [that Writing] Is The Best Life There Is, Because You Get To Live Within The Realm Of Your Own Mind, And That Is A Profoundly Rare Human Privilege.

Marriage Is Those Two Thousand Indistinguishable Conversations, Chatted Over Two Thousand Indistuinguishable Breakfasts, Where Intimacy Turns Like A Slow Wheel. How Do You Measure The Worth Of Becoming That Familiar To Somebody—so Utterly Well Known And So Thoroughly Ever-present That You Become An Almost Invisible Necessity, Like Air?

I Feel Like There Are Women Who Are Genuinely Born To Be Mothers, And Women Who Are Born To Be Aunties, And Women Who Really Probably Not Should Be Allowed Near Children. The Tragedy That Happens Is When Any One Of Those Women Ends Up In The Wrong Category.

I'm Not A Big Austen Reader. I Wouldn't Say I Dislike Her, But If I Had To Choose Between Her And Eliot To Bring To A Desert Island, It Would Definitely Be Eliot.

Real, Sane, Mature Love—the Kind That Pays The Mortgage Year After Year And Picks Up The Kids After School—is Not Based On Infatuation But On Affection And Respect.

When You Write A Novel, There’s A Level At Which You Are Much More Revealing About Who You Are Because You’re Less Self-conscious About How You’re Presenting Yourself. You Are Accidentally Leaving Your Dna All Over Everything In A Novel Because It’s All Coming From You.

To Be Fully Seen By Somebody, Then, And Be Loved Anyhow - This Is A Human Offering That Can Border On Miraculous.

I Am The Planet's Most Affectionate Life-form, Something Like The Cross Between A Golden Retriever And A Barnacle.

Golden Retrievers

I Have Far More Enthusiasm In Life Than I Have Actual Energy. In My Excitement, I Routinely Take On More That I Can Physically Or Emotionally Handle, Which Causes Me To Break Down In Quite Predictable Displays Of Dramatic Exhaustion. You Will Be The One Burdened With The Job Of Mopping Me Up Every Time I've Overextended Myself And Then Fallen Apart. This Will Be Unbelievably Tedious. I Apologize In Advance.

Well, Just Remember--all Your Misery Will Be Waiting For You At The Door Upon Your Exit, Should You Care To Pick It Up Again When You Leave.

This Was Not My Moment To Be Seeking Romance And (as Day Follows Night) To Further Complicate My Already Knotty Life. This Was My Moment To Look For The Kind Of Healing And Peace That Can Only Come From Solitude.

Just Having Walked Into A Prison Environment, Sat There For Two Hours, The Effect That It Had On Me. ... I Couldn't Imagine The Effect It Would Have On A Person 24 Hours A Day. So Then I Became More Intrigued, And We Began A Correspondence, And I Began Visiting [todd Willingham].

In The Modern Industrialized Western World, Where I Come From, The Person Whom You Choose To Marry Is Perhaps The Single Most Vivid Representation Of Your Own Personality. Your Spouse Becomes The Most Gleaming Possible Mirror Through Which Your Emotional Individualism Is Reflected Back To The World. There Is No Choice More Intensely Personal After All, Than Whom You Choose To Marry; That Choice Tells Us, To A Large Extent, Who You Are.

I’m Here. I Love You. I Don’t Care If You Need To Stay Up Crying All Night Long, I Will Stay With You... There’s Nothing You Can Ever Do To Lose My Love. I Will Protect You Until You Die, And After Your Death I Will Still Protect You. I Am Stronger Than Depression And I Am Braver Than Loneliness And Nothing Will Ever Exhaust Me.

Nobody Until Very Recently Would Have Thought That Their Husband Was Supposed To Be Their Best Friend, Confidante, Intellectual Soul Mate, Co-parent, Inspiration.

What Richard Is Talking About Is Instead Admitting To The Existence Of Negative Thoughts, Understanding Where They Came From And Why They Arrived, And Then - With Great Forgiveness And Fortitude - Dismissing Them.

Travel Is Similar To Therapy. You Can Go To The Best Psychologist In The World For Ten Years. If You Don't Feel Like Actively Shifting Anything In Your Life, There Is Nothing That Person Can Do To Change You.

My Work Is Incredibly Important To Me Personally. It Brings Me Joy And It Brings Me Life And It Brings Me Meaning. It Doesn't Necessarily Have To Be Important To The People Who Read It.

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.

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.

Everything Good I've Ever Gotten In Life, I Only Got Because I Gave Something Else Up.

It Is Merely This World That Is Chaotic, Bringing Changes To Us All That Nobody Could Have Anticipated.

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.

If You're Going To Answer The Call And You're Going To Transform And You're Going To Change, Get Ready. It Is Not A Day At The Beach.

But I Don't Know How Much More Socializing I Can Do, Felipe. I Only Have The One Dress. People Will Start To Notice That I'm Wearing The Same Thing All The Time." "you're Young And Beautiful, Darling. You Only Need The One Dress

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?

He Looks At You Like You're Someone He's Never Met Before, Much Less Someone He Once Loved With High Passion. The Irony Is, You Can Hardly Blame Him. I Mean, Check Yourself Out. You're A Pathetic Mess, Unrecognizable Even To Your Own Eyes.

I Was The Baby Of The Family, But I Was Never Babied, And That Allowed Me To Take Whatever Artistic Temperament I Had And Apply Learned Discipline. I Was Taught How To Work. I Think That's Everything. Creativity And Imagination Alone Are Not Going To Get You There.

According To The Mystics, This Search For Divine Bliss Is The Entire Purpose Of A Human Life. This Is Why We All Chose To Be Born, And This Is Why All The Suffering And Pain Of Life On Earth Is Worthwhile--just For The Chance To Experience This Infinite Love. And Once You Have Found This Divinity Within, Can You Hold It? Because If You Can...bliss.

Do Not Apologize For Crying. Without This Emotion, We Are Only Robots.

I Think I Deserve Something Beautiful.

So When Modern-day Religious Conservatives Wax Nostalgic About How Marriage Is A Sacred Tradition That Reaches Back Into History For Thousands Of Uninterrupted Years, They Are Absolutely Correct, But In Only One Respect-only If They Happen To Be Talking About Judaism.

From The Most Sacred Ancient Text Of Yoga: Oh Krishna, The Mind Is Restless, Turbulent, Strong, And Unyielding. I Consider It As Difficult To Subdue As The Wind.

Do I Really Deserve This Pleasure? This Is American, Too-the Insecurity About Whether We Have Earned Our Happiness.

If You're Brave Enough To Leave Behind Everything Familiar And Comforting, Which Can Be Anything From Your House To Bitter, Old Resentments, And Set Out On A Truth-seeking Journey, Either Externally Or Internally, And If You Are Truly Willing To Regard Everything That Happens To You On That Journey As A Clue And If You Accept Everyone You Meet Along The Way As A Teacher And If You Are Prepared, Most Of All, To Face And Forgive Some Very Difficult Realities About Yourself, Then The Truth Will Not Be Withheld From You.

Embrace The Beautiful Mess That You Are.

I Myself Have Never Been Enchanted By The Dream Of The White Wedding, And, Heaven Help Us, The Expectation That This Exquisitely Catered Event Should Be 'the Happiest Moment' Of One's Life.

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.

A True Soul Mate Is Probably The Most Important Person You'll Ever Meet, Because They Tear Down Your Walls And Smack You Awake.

That's What We're All Sort Of Trying To Do In Our Lives - To Make The Simplest Things Work Out The Best.

There's No Reason To Keep A Piece Of Furniture In Your House That Is So Sacred And Rare That You Can't Put Your Feet Up On It And A Dog Can't Jump Up On It. Likewise, A Book That Sits On A Shelf Like A Piece Of Porcelain, Only To Be Admired, Never To Be Read Again, Is A Dead Book.

As For Discipline—it's Important, But Sort Of Overrated. The More Important Virtue For A Writer, I Believe, Is Self-forgiveness. Because Your Writing Will Always Disappoint You. Your Laziness Will Always Disappoint You.

Embrace The Glorious Mess That You Are

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.

Library Is A Beautiful Old Thing

When We Are Mindful Of Every Nuance Of Our Natural World, We Finally Get The Picture: That We Are Only Given One Dazzling Moment Of Life Here On Earth, And We Must Stand Before That Reality Both Humbled And Elevated, Subject To Every Law Of Our Universe And Grateful For Our Brief But Intrinsic Participation With It.

I Have A History Of Making Decisions Very Quickly About Men. I Have Always Fallen In Love Fast And Without Measuring Risks. I Have A Tendency Not Only To See The Best In Everyone, But To Assume That Everyone Is Emotionally Capable Of Reaching His Highest Potential. I Have Fallen In Love More Times Than I Care To Count With The Highest Potential Of A Man, Rather Than With The Man Himself, And I Have Hung On To The Relationship For A Long Time (sometimes Far Too Long) Waiting For The Man To Ascend To His Own Greatness. Many Times In Romance I Have Been A Victim Of My Own Optimism.

I Have No Nostalgia For The Patriarchy, Please Believe Me. But What I Have Come To Realize Is That, When That Patriarchic System Was (rightfully) Dismantled, It Was Not Necessarily Replaced By Another Form Of Protection. What I Mean Is--i Never Thought To Ask A Suitor The Same Challenging Questions My Father Might Have Asked Him, In A Different Age.

Here In America, Marriage Still Has A Mystical, Intangible Power: It Is A Passport To Adulthood And Respectability And To A Certain Extent Citizenship. Any Relationship Less Than "married" Is Considered Temporary And Not Worthy Of Honor.

Traveling Is The Great True Love Of My Life... I Am Loyal And Constant In My Love Of Travel. I Feel About Travel The Way A Happy New Mother Feels About Her Impossible, Colicky, Restless Newborn Baby - I Just Don't Care What It Puts Me Through. Because I Adore It. Because It's Mine. Because It Looks Exactly Like Me.

Love Of My Life

I Have More Compassion Than If I Had Led A Life Where Everything Worked Out Exactly As I Had Planned Or If I Had Never Been Wounded Or If I Had Never Been Betrayed Or I Had Never Been Harmed. I Don't Think I Would Be As Good A Person.

I Used To Say, 'man, I Think I'd Be A Really Good Dad. I'll Be A Great Provider. I'm Funny; I'll Go On Trips With Them - I'll Do All Sorts Of Stuff.' But The Momming? I'm Not Made For That. I Have A Really Good Mom; I Know What She Put Into It.

Just As There Exists In Writing A Literal Truth And A Poetic Truth, There Also Exists In A Human Being A Literal Anatomy And A Poetic Anatomy. One, You Can See; One, You Cannot. One Is Made Of Bones And Teeth And Flesh; The Other Is Made Of Energy And Memory And Faith. But They Are Both Equally True.

Every Try To Take A Toy Away From A Toddler? They Don't Like That, Do They? They Start Kicking And Screaming. Best Way To Take A Toy Away From A Toddler Is Distract The Kid, Give Him Something Else To Play With. Instead Of Trying To Forcefully Take Thoughts Out Of Your Mind, Give Your Mind Something Better To Play With.

The Beauty And Variety Of The Natural World Are Merely The Visible Legacies Of Endless War.

What I Object To Is The Hyper-fetishized Wedding Day, The Prioritizing Of Wedding Over Marriage. I Have A Real Problem With Couples Spending Far More Time Discussing The Seating Arrangement Or The Color Of The Bridesmaid's Gowns Than Hashing Out, For Instance, Their Feelings About How They Intend To Handle Questions Of Housework, Child-rearing, Finances And Fidelity For The Next Four Or Five Decades.

The Great Sufi Poet And Philosopher Rumi Once Advised His Students To Write Down The Three Things They Most Wanted In Life. If Any Item On The List Clashes With Any Other Item, Rumi Warned, You Are Destined For Unhappiness.

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience Of God.

I Have Searched Frantically For Contentment For So Many Years In So Many Ways, And All The Acquisitions And Accomplishments- They Run You Down In The End.

Big Deal. So You Fell In Love With Someone. Don’t You See What Happened? This Guy Touched A Place In Your Heart Deeper Than You Thought You Were Capable Of Reaching, I Mean You Got Zapped, Kiddo. But That Love You Felt, That’s Just The Beginning. You Just Got A Taste Of Love. That’s Just Limited Little Rinky-dink Mortal Love. Wait Till You See How Much More Deeply You Can Love Than That. Heck, Groceries—you Have The Capacity To Someday Love The Whole World. It’s Your Destiny. Don’t Laugh.

You Love New Boyfriend?" "i Think So. Yes." "then You Must Spoil Him. And He Must Spoil You.

Infatuation Is Not Quite The Same Thing As Love; It's More Like Love's Shady Second Cousin Who's Always Borrowing Money And Can't Hold Down A Job.

My Life's Accomplishments? Sanity, And You.

Watch For The People Whose Eyes Light Up When You Talk About Your Dream. Those Are The People You Keep.

The Inability To Open Up To Hope Is What Blocks Trust, And Blocked Trust Is The Reason For Blighted Dreams.

Balance Is Not Letting Anyone Love You Less Than You Love Yourself.

I Love My Pizza So Much, In Fact, That I Have Come To Believe In My Delirium That My Pizza Might Actually Love Me, In Return. I Am Having A Relationship With This Pizza, Almost An Affair.

I Want God To Play In My Bloodstream The Way Sunlight Amuses Itself On The Water.

The Number 108 Is Held To Be The Most Auspicious, A Perfect Three-digit Multiple Of Three, Its Components Adding Up To 9, Which Is Three Threes. And 3, Of Course, Is The Number Representing Supreme Balance.

Traveling-to-a-place Energy And Living-in-a-place Energy Are Two Fundamentally Different Energies

When I Get Lonely These Days, I Think: So Be Lonely, Liz. Learn Your Way Around Loneliness. Make A Map Of It. Sit With It, For Once In Your Life. Welcome To The Human Experience. But Never Again Use Another Person's Body Or Emotions As A Scratching Post For Your Own Unfulfilled Yearnings.

How Could Two People Who Were So In Love Not End Up Happily Ever After? It Had To Work. Didn’t It?

You May Return Here Once You Have Fully Come To Understand That You Are Always Here.

This Is Intimacy: The Trading Of Stories In The Dark.

So I Stood Up And Did A Handstand On My Guru's Roof, To Celebrate The Notion Of Liberation. I Felt The Dusty Tiles Under My Hands. I Felt My Own Strength And Balance. I Felt The Easy Night Breeze On The Palms Of My Bare Feet. This Kind Of Thing -- A Spontaneous Handstand--isn't Something A Disembodied Cool Blue Soul Can Do, But A Human Being Can Do It. We Have Hands; We Can Stand On Them If We Want To. That's Our Privilege. That's The Joy Of A Mortal Body. And That's Why God Needs Us. Because God Loves To Feel Things Through Our Hands.

We're Already Separated That's Official But There's Still A Window Of Hope Left Open That Perhaps Someday We Could Give Things Another Try.

My Career Started Young And I Was Really Ambitious, And Then I Had Success And I Hung Out With People Who Were Much Older. I Think I Might Have Been Temporally Misplaced, So I Thought I Was 40. It Was A Premature Midlife Crisis.

I Wonder If I Am Capable Of Being Somebody’s Sun, Somebody’s Everything. Am I Centered Enough Now To Be The Center Of Somebody Else’s Life?

I Won The Argument Against The Knife That Night, But Barely. I Had Some Other Good Ideas Around That Time--about How Jumping Off A Building Or Blowing My Brains Out With A Gun Might Stop The Suffering. But Something About Spending A Night With A Knife In My Hand Did It. The Next Morning I Called My Friend Susan As The Sun Came Up, Begged Her To Help Me. I Don't Think A Woman In The Whole History Of My Family Had Ever Done That Before, Had Ever Sat In The Middle Of The Road Like That And Said, In The Middle Of Her Life, "i Cannot Walk Another Step Further--somebody Has To Help Me.

Success Isn't About Acquiring Things, It's About Discovering Your Life Purpose And Following The Call

Acquiring Things

And Then, In That Regal Silence, Finally - I Began To Meditate On (and With) God.

As Smoking Is To The Lungs, So Is Resentment To The Soul; Even One Puff Is Bad For You.

What Worked Yesterday Doesn't Always Work Today.

Bali Eat Pray Love

I Had Long Ago Learned That When You Are The Giant, Alien Visitor To A Remote And Foreign Culture It Is Sort Of Your Job To Become An Object Of Ridicule. It’s The Least You Can Do, Really, As A Polite Guest.

Richard Didn't Even Have Time To Ask If I Thought I'd Ever Amount To Anything In This Life Before I Looked Him Eye To Eye And Said, "i Already Have, Mister.

I've Always Thought Of My Writing As A Spiritual Practice. But I Think That Fiction Is The Most Supernatural Kind Of Writing That You Can Do - Because Of The Ways That The Real And The Unreal Weave Together To Create Something That Feels More True Than Anything.

Look - I Understand That An Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living, But Do You Think I Could Someday Have An Unexamined Lunch?

In Stillness, I Watched Myselfget Eaten By Mosquitoes... The Itch Was Maddening At First But Eventually It Just Melded Into A General Burning Feeling And I Rode That Heat To A Mld Euphoria. I Allowed The Pain To Lose Its Specific Associations And Become Pure Sensation... And That Eventually Lifted Me Out Of Myself And Into Meditation.

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 Live In This Society Where You Must Constantly Be Reinventing Yourself. The Big Question Is What Are You Doing Next. The Only Thing They Want Is Composed Of These Three Elements: They Want You To Do It The Exact Same Way Because They Want More Of It; But They Want It To Be Totally Different; And They Want It To Be Better. That's All You Have To Do. You Just Have To Do Something That's Exactly The Same, Totally Different, And Better.

When The Past Has Passed From You At Last, Let Go. Then Climb Down And Begin The Rest Of Your Life. With Great Joy.

Parla Come Mangi' --it Is A Common Way To Say 'be Simple', 'don't Try To Be Rhetorical' Literaly: 'speak The Way You Eat

For The Entire Decade Of My 30s And The Early Part Of My 40s, I Didn't Write A Word Of Fiction. I Just Left Behind A Dream Of My Life.

It's What I Call The Haute Couture, High-end Version Of Fear Perfectionism. It's Just Fear In Really Good Shoes. But It's Still Fear.

I Will Tell You Why We Have These Extraordinary Minds And Souls, Miss Whittaker," He Continued, As Though He Had Not Heard Her. "we Have Them Because There Is A Supreme Intelligence In The Universe, Which Wishes For Communion With Us. This Supreme Intelligence Longs To Be Known. It Calls Out To Us. It Draws Us Close To Its Mystery, And Grants Us These Remarkable Minds, In Order That We Try To Reach For It. It Wants Us To Find It. It Wants Union With Us, More Than Anything.

People Will Always Want Intimacy With One Chosen Person And You Cannot Have Intimacy Without Privacy, Which Is Why Couples Draw Circles Of Privacy Around Themselves. They Demand That Family, Neighbors And The Law Respect Their Union, And That Is Why We Have Marriage.

I Think My Weakness As A Writer Is A Limited Imagination, And I Think My Strength Is A Talent For Reflecting The World, Or Sort Of Curating Things Out Of The World And Putting Them Into Books.

The Four Virtues A Person Needs In Order To Be Safe And Happy In Life: Intelligence, Friendship, Strength And (i Love This One) Poetry.

I Watched Them, Thinking That Little Girls Who Make Their Mothers Live Grow Up To Be Such Powerful Women.

The Story He [todd Willingham] Told Me Was This: He Woke Up To A Fire. He Ran Out Of The House And Couldn't Run Back In To Save His Children, And That Was Enough To Get Me Interested. ... There's A Writer In Me That's Like, ... This Is A Great Story. ... I Have A Good Friend, Who Was My Neighbor At The Time, And I Told Her About It. ... She Had Been A Reporter, And She Was Like, "let's Go Investigate It."

Our Relationship Now Thoroughly Ruined, With Even Civility Destroyed Between Us, All I Wanted Anymore Was The Door.

Our Relationship

You Know, I Think That Allowing Somebody, One Mere Person To Believe That He Or She Is Like, The Vessel You Know, Like The Font And The Essence And The Source Of All Divine, Creative, Unknowable, Eternal Mystery Is Just A Smidge Too Much Responsibility To Put On One Fragile, Human Psyche. It's Like Asking Somebody To Swallow The Sun.

We Must Take Care Of Our Families Wherever We Find Them.

The Thing I Love About Dickens Is The Omniscient, Omnipotent Narrator, And The Great Confidence Of The Narrator, Which Marks 19th-century Novelists In General And Dickens In Particular.

Absolute Certainty Is Not Something I Strive For Anymore. I've Learned The Hard Way That Destiny Usually Looks Upon Our Most Strident Convictions With Amusement, Or Perhaps Even Pity.

Creativity Asks You To Enter Realms With Uncertain Outcomes. People Want To Create A Safe Life For Themselves So They Try To Live Without Fear And They End Up Killing Their Creativity In The Process.

Learn Your Way Around Loneliness. Make A Map Of It. Sit With It, For Once In Your Life. Welcome To The Human Experience.

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. My Mind Swings Wildly Through Time, Touching On Dozens Of Ideas A Minute, Unharnessed And Undisciplined. You Are, After All, What You Think. Your Emotions Are The Slaves To Your Thoughts, And You Are The Slave To Your Emotions.

Now, If You Are Like Me - If You Are Like Practically Anybody In America - Then You Probably Hold Some Negative Opinions About The French, Based Upon Movies, Rumors, Recent Headlines, Unfortunate Run-ins With Parisian Waiters, Or... You Know... All That Unpleasantness Surrounding The Vichy Regime.

Now Imagine A Life In Which Every Day A Person Is Presented With Not Two Or Even Three But Dozens Of Choices, And You Can Begin To Grasp Why The Modern World Has Become, Even With All Its Advantages, A Neurosis-generating Machine Of The Highest Order.

I Cannot Overstate The Power Of Libraries In My Life.

And What Will I Be Able To Do Tomorrow That I Cannot Yet Do Today?

Who Amongst Us Lives Without Sacrifice?

Without Sacrifice

I've Ruined My Eyes, I've Ruined My Health From My Studiousness!

I Went To Shea Stadium And Used The Men's Room. Terrifying. There Was This Little Kid Looking At Me Through The Crack [in The Stall]. And I Was Like, "if You Tell Anyone What You've Seen..."

Maybe It's Just Me But I Would Suspect That A Man Trying To Impress A Woman Would Be More Likely To Bring Out The Steak - "i Killed This For You, Now I'm Grilling It For You."

I'm A Pleaser. That's My Character.

I Do Forget Sometimes How Much It Means For Certain Men—for Certain People—to Be Able To Provide Their Loved Ones With Material Comforts And Protection At All Times. I Forget How Dangerously Reduced Some Men Can Feel When That Basic Ability Has Been Stripped From Them. I Forget How Much That Matters To Men, What It Represents.

The Great Sufi Poet And Philosopher Rumi Once Advised His Students To Write Down The Three Things They Most Wanted In Life. If Any Item On The List Clashes With Any Other Item, Rumi Warned, You Are Destined For Unhappiness. Better To Live A Life Of Single-pointed Focus, He Taught. But What About The Benefits Of Living Harmoniously Among Extremes? What If You Could Somehow Create An Expansive Enough Life That You Could Synchronize Seemingly Incongruous Opposites Into A Worldview That Excludes Nothing?

My Restlessness Makes Me A Far Better Day-to-day Traveler Than He Will Ever Be. I Am Infinitely Curious And Almost Infinitely Patient With Mishaps, Discomforts, And Minor Disasters. So I Can Go Anywhere On The Planet—that’s Not A Problem. The Problem Is That I Just Can’t Live Anywhere On The Planet.

I Have Had Work Or Ideas Come Through Me From A Source That I Honestly Cannot Identify. And What Is That Thing? And How Are We To Relate To It In A Way That Will Not Make Us Lose Our Minds, But, In Fact, Might Actually Keep Us Sane?

I Think You Have Every Right To Cherry-pick When It Comes To Moving Your Spirit And Finding Peace In God. You Take Whatever Works From Wherever You Can Find It, And You Keep Moving Toward The Light.

Admittedly, I Am Not The One Who Looks Fantastic In Everything, But Still I Cannot Help Loving Myself.

Keep Showing Up For Your Side Of The Job And Give Genius A Chance To Do Its Part.

How Much Do You Love Me?' And "who's In Charge?" ....these Two Questions Of Love And Control Undo Us All, Trip Us Up And Cause War, Grief, And Suffering. People Follow Different Paths, Straight Or Crooked, According To Their Temperament, Depending On Which They Consider Best, Or Most Appropriate -- And All Reach You, Just As Rivers Enter The Ocean.

My Mother Has Made Choices In Her Life, As We All Must, And She Is At Peace With Them. I Can See Her Peace. She Did Not Cop Out On Herself. The Benefits Of Her Choices Are Massive-a Long, Stable Marriage To A Man She Still Calls Her Best Friend; A Family That Has Extended Now Into Grandchildren Who Adore Her; A Certainty In Her Own Strength. Maybe Some Things Were Sacrificed, And My Dad Made His Sacrifices, Too-but Who Amongst Us Lives Without Sacrifice?

The Only Boring People I Know Are Bored People.

Your Fear Is Just As Boring As Mine Is. Everyone's Got The Same One. It Is Not Precious. It Is Not Special. It Is Not Singular To You. It's Just The One We All Got Wired With When We Came In. Focus On Your Unique Qualities That Deserve To Be Celebrated And Put Fear Back In Its Place. Don't Listen To It. Onward.

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.

I Was Perfectly Happy In My Boring Life Before You Came Along.

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.

The Whole Sphere Of Air That Surrounds Us, Alma, Is Alive With Invisible Attractions — Electric, Magnetic, Fiery And Thoughtful. There Is A Universal Sympathy All Around Us… When We Cease All Argument And Debate — Both Internal And External — Our True Questions Can Be Heard And Answered…that Is The Gathering Of Magic.

Sometimes Beauty Needs A Bit Of Ignoring, To Properly Come Into Being.

Happiness Is The Consequence Of Personal Effort. You Must Fight For It, Strive For It, And Insist Upon It.

Marriage Is A Strange Combination Of Dream And Reality, And We Spend Our Lives As Couples Trying To Negotiate That Divide.

I'm Choosing Happiness Over Suffering, I Know I Am. I'm Making Space For The Unknown Future To Fill Up My Life With Yet-to-come Surprises.

Kalos Kai Agathos, The Singular Balance Of The Good And The Beautiful.

This Is What Intimacy Does To Us Over Time. That's What A Long Marriage Can Do: It Causes Us To Inherit And Trade Each Other's Stories. (p.237)

Change Is All About Motion, Motion Is All About Uncertainty And We Are Deeply Uncomfortable With Uncertainty.

I've Been Screwed And Sued And Tattooed, And I'm Still Standin' Here In Front Of You.

I Feel Like All This Stuff That We Make: Books And Art And Music, All Of It. There's This Energy That Circles The World That Wants To Be Made Manifest, And It Is Just Looking For Someone To Come Through. And It's Dying For You To Make It. And If You Don't Do It, It Will Go Find Somebody Else.

My Heart Skipped A Beat And Then Flat-out Tripped Over Itself And Fell On Its Face. Then My Heart Stood Up, Brushed Itself Off, Took A Deep Breath And Announced: "i Want A Spiritual Teacher.

He Told Me That One Of The Reasons People Are So Unhappy Is They Don't Talk To Themselves. He Said You Have To Keep A Conversation Going With Yourself Throughout Your Life To See How You're Doing, To Keep Your Focus, To Remain Your Own Friend. He Told Me That He Talked To Himself All The Time, And That It Helped Him To Grow Stronger And Better Everyday.

All Of Women's Stories In The 19th Century Had Either One Of Two Endings: You Either Had The Good Jane Austen Marriage At The End And You Were Happy; Or You Had The Terrible Henry James Savage Downfall Because Of Your Own Hubris As A Woman, Or You've Made Some Great Error Leading You Down A Path To Ruin. One Is The Story Of Love That's Successful And The Other Is The Story Usually Of Reckless Love That Goes Terribly Wrong That Destroys The Woman.

When You're Lost In Those Woods, It Sometimes Takes You A While To Realize That You Are Lost. For The Longest Time, You Can Convince Yourself That You've Just Wandered Off The Path, That You'll Find Your Way Back To The Trailhead Any Moment Now. Then Night Falls Again And Again, And You Still Have No Idea Where You Are, And It's Time To Admit That You Have Bewildered Yourself So Far Off The Path That You Don't Even Know From Which Direction The Sun Rises Anymore.

I Don't Think You Can Say That Feminism Has Made Women Critical Of Marriage Because Women Have Been Critical Of Marriage For Centuries.

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.

God Wants Us To Be In Joy, God Wants Us To Be Happy. Because Of This Extraordinary Consciousness And This Great Ability For Wonder And Marvel, And Without Denying Any Of The Terrors And Horrors Of The World, We Also Have An Obligation Toward Joy And Toward Miracle And Excitement.

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