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I Have My Own Set Of Survival Techniques. I Am Patient. I Know How To Pack Light. But My One Might Travel Talent Is That I Can Make Friends With Anybody. I Can Make Friends With The Dead. If There Isn’t Anyone Else Around To Talk To, I Could Probably Make Friends With A Four-foot-tall Pile Of Sheetrock. That Is Why I’m Not Afraid To Travel To The Most Remote Places In The World, Not If There Are Human Beings There To Meet. People Asked Me Before I Left, “do You Have Friends [there]?’ And I Would Just Shake My Head No, Thinking To Myself, But I Will.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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I Have My Own

Elizabeth Gilbert

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I Have My Own Set Of Survival Techniques. I Am Patient. I Know How To Pack Light. But My One Might Travel Talent Is That I Can Make Friends With Anybody. I Can Make Friends With The Dead. If There Isn’t Anyone Else Around To Talk To, I Could Probably Make Friends With A Four-foot-tall Pile Of Sheetrock. That Is Why I’m Not Afraid To Travel To The Most Remote Places In The World, Not If There Are Human Beings There To Meet. People Asked Me Before I Left, “do You Have Friends [there]?’ And I Would Just Shake My Head No, Thinking To Myself, But I Will.

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I Don't Think You Can Come Into Your Wisdom Until You Have Made Mistakes On Your Own Skin And Felt Them In Reality Of Your Own 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.

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.

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience Of God.

There's Nothing Special About Your Fear.

When You Want To Do Something Creative And You Want To Do Something New, You Have To Start With The Thing That's Making You Want To Jump Up Out Of Bed In The Morning.

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.

Oh My God, Baby, You Are In So Much Trouble.

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.

You Know The Old Adage: Plant An Expectation, Reap A Disappointment.

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.

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.

At Some Point, You Gotta Let Go, And Sit Still, And Allow Contentment To Come To You.

The Augusteum Warns Me Not To Get Attached To Any Obsolete Ideas About Who I Am, What I Represent, Whom I Belong To, Or What Function I May Once Have Intended To Serve.

As Far As We Know, We Are The Only Species On The Planet Who Have Been Given The Gift-or Curse, Perhaps-of Awareness About Our Own Mortality. Everything Here Eventually Dies; We're Just The Lucky Ones Who Get To Think About This Fact Every Day.

The Six Elements Of Her Fail Proof Broken-heart Curing Treatment: "vitamin E, Get Much Sleep, Drink Much Water, Travel To A Place Far Away From The Person You Loved, Meditate And Teach Your Heart That This Is Destiny.

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 Was Not Rescued By A Prince; I Was The Administrator Of My Own Rescue.

To Find The Balance You Want, This Is What You Must Become. You Must Keep Your Feet Grounded So Firmly On The Earth That It's Like You Have 4 Legs Instead Of 2. That Way, You Can Stay In The World. But You Must Stop Looking At The World Through Your Head. You Must Look Through Your Heart, Instead. That Way, You Will Know God.

It Has Never Been Easy For Me To Understand Why People Work So Hard To Create Something Beautiful, But Then Refuse To Share It With Anyone, For Fear Of Criticism.

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

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.

Moss Is Inconceivably Strong. Moss Eats Stone; Scarcely Anything, In Return, Eats Moss. Moss Dines Upon Boulders, Slowly But Devastatingly, In A Meal That Lasts For Centuries. Given Enough Time, A Colony Of Moss Can Turn A Cliff Into Gravel, And Turn That Gravel Into Topsoil.

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

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Women Have Always Been More Critical Of Marriage Than Men. The Great Mysterious Irony Of It Is - At Least It's The Stereotype - That Women Want To Get Married And Men Are Trying To Avoid It. Marriage Doesn't Benefit Women As Much As Men, And It Never Has. And Women, Once They Are Married, Become Very Critical Of Marriages In A Way That Men Don't.

Maturity Brings - Among Other Things - The Ability To Sustain And Survive Enormous Contradictions And Disappointments.

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

There Is 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.

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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.

You Have To Work Ceaselessly On Your End To Digest And Imbibe Your Opportunities Or, I Have Come To Believe, They Will Gradually Slip Away And Knock On Someone Else's More Receptive Door.

We Can Change Our Wives,” He Said. “we Can Change Our Jobs, Our Nationalities And Even Our Religions, But We Can Never Change Our Team.

Mistakes Will Be Made. Failure Will Occur. You Pick Yourself Up And Carry On.

Pick Yourself Up

So Now I Have Started Living My Own Life. Imperfect And Clumsy As It May Look, It Is Resembling Me Now, Thoroughly.

Reality Has Taught Us That No Woman Can Build An Honest Life Without Sacrificing Something Along The Way. Deciding What Will Be Sacrificed Is Not Easy.

I Believe In A Magnificent God.

Nobody's Life Is Interesting Enough To Warrant A Third Memoir.

Indeed, When I Came To Italy, I Expected To Encounter A Certain Amount Of Resentment, But Have Received Instead Empathy From Most Italians. In Any Reference To George Bush, People Only Nod To Berlusconi, Saying","we Understand How It Is - We Have One, Too.

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When It Comes To Women, Get Your Life Together First. Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First. Figure Out Who You Are. Mature. And Then Go Find Somebody To Share That Life With.

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

Some Days Are Meant To Be Counted, Others Are Meant To Be Weighed.

Every Few Years, I Think, 'maybe Now I'm Finally Smart Enough Or Sophisticated Enough To Understand 'ulysses.'' So I Pick It Up And Try It Again. And By Page 10, As Always, I'm Like, 'what The Hell?'

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

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I Think I Deserve Something Beautiful.

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

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I Share It Here Because Something Was About To Occur On That Bathroom Floor That Would Change Forever The Progression Of My Life..what Happened Was That I Started To Pray.

Sometimes Out Hearts Are Broken So New Light Can Get In.

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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.

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.

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Soon You Start Craving That Intense Attention With The Hungry Obsession Of Any Junkie. When The Drug Is Withheld You Probably Turn Sick, Crazy And Depleted Not To Mention Resentful Of The Dealer Who Encourage This Addiction In The First Place But Who Now Refuses To Pony Up The Good Stuff Anymore Despite That You Know That He Has It Hidden Somewhere God Dammit Because You Know That He Used To Give It To You For Free.

When Catherine Told Me About This (tragedy Nearby), I Could Only Say, Shocked, "dear God, That Family Needs Grace." She Replied Firmly, "that Family Needs Casseroles," And Then 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.

When It Seemed Like I Was Going To Really Have To Be There At Todd's [willingham] Execution, I Don't Think I Could Have Done It. I Think I Began To Distance Myself. I Didn't Visit As Often; I Didn't Write As Often. This Was Kind Of After My Conversation With [fire Science Expert] Gerald Hurst. And The [car] Accident Made Sure That I Didn't Have To Go Up There. But I Think He And I Both Shared That.

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.

I Was A Bartender For A Long Time, So I Know How To Make Drinks, But I'm More Likely To Offer Them Than To Have Them. I Think This Is One Of The Reasons Why I Get To Live Longer Than My Great-grandmother Did, And Why I Get To Produce More Writing Than She Did, And Why My Marriage Isn't In Dire Straits.

The More Exquisitely And Delightfully You Can Do Nothing, The Higher Your Life's Achievement.

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I Am Determined To Make The Most Of This Life That I Have, Damn It - It's That Kind Of Stubbornness I Think We All Need More Of.

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

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

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

Everything Really Is Going To Be Okay. (and If Not Okay, Then At Least Comic.)

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.

Then Again, You Cannot Stop The Flood Of Desire As It Moves Through The World, Inappropriate Though It May Sometimes Be. It Is The Prerogative Of All Humans To Make Ludicrous Choices, To Fall In Love With The Most Unlikely Of Partners, And To Set Themselves Up For The Most Predicatable Of Calamities.

Falling In Love

All The Parts Of Us That We Ever Were Are Always Going To Be With Us. You Make Space To Carry Them And You Just Try Not To Let Them Drive. But You Can't Chuck Them Out Either.

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.

Every Word Was A Singing Sparrow, A Magic Trick, A Truffle For Me. The Words Made Me Laugh In Delight.

There Is Hardly A More Gracious Gift That We Can Offer Somebody Than To Accept Them Fully, To Love Them Almost Despite Themselves.

My Life Acccomplishments? Sanity, And You

Astonishingly, At Some Point, A Sputtering Torch Was Thrust Into Her Hands. Alma Did Not See Who Gave It To Her. She Had Never Before Been Entrusted With Fire. The Torch Spit Sparks And Sent Chunks Of Flaming Tar Spinning Into The Air Behind Her As She Bolted Across The Cosmos-the Only Body In The Heavens Who Was Not Held To A Strict Elliptical Path. Nobody Stopped Her. She Was A Comet. She Did Not Know That She Was Not Flying.

This Is A Good Sign, Having A Broken Heart. It Means We Have Tried For Something.

If Life Gives You Lemons, Don't Settle For Simply Making Lemonade - Make A Glorious Scene At A Lemonade Stand.

But, Ancient Greece And Ancient Rome - People Did Not Happen To Believe That Creativity Came From Human Beings Back Then, Ok? People Believed That Creativity Was This Divine Attendant Spirit That Came To Human Beings From Some Distant And Unknowable Source, For Distant And Unknowable Reasons.

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.

[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.

If You Want To Know The World, Sometimes You Have To Get Out And Roll Around.

My Face Is A Transparent Transmitter Of My Every Thought.

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.

It's Easy Enough To Pray When You're In Distress But Continuing To Pray Even When Your Crisis Has Passed Is Like A Sealing Process, Helping Your Soul Hold Tight To Its Good Attainment.

The Reality, Certainly In My Life, Is That We All Have Love Stories That Go Terribly Wrong; We All Have Horribly Broken Hearts. And Somehow We Endure. We're Not Destroyed By It.

Teach Your Heart That This Is Destiny

He Was Powerful And I Died Of Love In His Shadow.

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

But We Are Not What The Other One Needs, Still He Is Certain That I Will Find Great Love In My Life Someday. He Is Sure Of It. After All, He Says, Beauty Attracts Beauty.

There's A Part Of Me Which Has Always Wanted To Hear A Man Say, "let Me Take Care Of You Forever," And I Have Never Heard It Spoken Before. Over The Last Few Years, I'd Given Up Looking For That Person, Learned How To Say This Heartening Sentence To Myself, Especially In Times Of Fear. But To Hear It From Someone Else Now, From Someone Who Is Speaking Sincerely.

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.

Creativity Is A Scavenger Hunt. It's Your Obligation To Pay Attention To Clues, To The Thing That Gives You That Little Tweak.

Never Forget That Once Upon A Time, In An Unguarded Moment, You Recognized Yourself As A Friend.

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What A Large Number Of Factors Constitute A Single Human Being! How Very Many Layers We Operate On, And How Very Many Influences We Receive From Our Minds, Our Bodies, Our Histories, Our Families, Our Cities, Our Souls And Our Lunches!

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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.

Pleasure Seeking

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.

I Think The Thing That I Lost In Myself When I Stopped Writing Fiction And The Thing That I Rediscovered And Started Mining Again Is, For Lack Of A Better Word, Magic. It's The Way You Can Brush Up Against The Inexplicable And The Mystical.

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.

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.

You Have The Opposite Of Poker Face. You Have Like.. Miniature Golf Face.

But If You Can Plant Yourself In Stillness Long Enough, You Will, In Time, Experience The Truth That Everything (both Uncomfortable And Lovely) Does Eventually Pass.

Someone Has To Write All Those Stories: Why Not Me?

Prayer Is A Relationship; Half The Job Is Mine. If I Want Transformation, But Can't Even Be Bothered To Articulate What, Exactly, I'm Aiming For, How Will It Ever Occur? Half The Benefit Of Prayer Is In The Asking Itself, In The Offering Of A Clearly Posed And Well-considered Intention. If You Don't Have This, All Your Pleas And Desires Are Boneless, Floppy, Inert; They Swirl At Your Feet In A Cold Fog And Never Lift.

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

We Were Taught To Be Dependable, Responsible, The Top Of Our Classes At School, The Most Organized And Efficient Babysitters In Town, The Very Miniature Models Of Our Hardworking Farmer/nurse Mother, A Pair Of Junior Swiss Army Knives, Born To Multitask.

Most Of Us, Even If Only For Two Minutes In Our Lives, Have Experienced At Some Time Or Another An Inexplicable And Random Sense Of Complete Bliss, Unrelated To Anything That Was Happening In The Outside World.

Your Father Only Has One Foot On This Earth. And Really, Really Long Legs . . .

Most Of All, I Can Choose My Thoughts.

Bali Eat Pray Love

Marriage Becomes Hard Work Once You Have Poured The Entirety Of Your Life’s Expectations For Happiness Into The Hands Of One Mere Person. Keeping That Going Is Hard Work.

Faith Is Walking Face-first And Full-speed Into The Dark. If We Truly Knew All The Answers In Advance As To The Meaning Of Life And The Nature Of God And The Destiny Of Our Souls, Our Belief Would Not Be A Leap Of Faith And It Would Not Be A Courageous Act Of Humanity; It Would Just Be... A Prudent Insurance Policy.

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.

Offer It Up Personally,then. Right Now. 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? From That Place Of Meditation, I Found The Answer-you Can Finish The Business Yourself, From Within Yourself. It's Not Only Possible, It's Essential.

God Isn't Interested In Watching You Enact Some Performance Of Personality In Order To Comply With Some Crackpot Notion You Have About How A Spiritual Person Looks Or Behaves. We All Seem To Get This Idea That, In Order To Be Sacred, We Have To Make Some Massive, Dramatic Change Of Character, That We Have To Renounce Our Individuality.

A Lovely Evening Of New Idioms And Fresh Mozzarella.

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

I Never Wanted To Be The Person That Waited For A Stranger To Come To Town - I Wanted To Be The Stranger!

The Only Thing More Unthinkable Than Leaving Was Staying; The Only Thing More Impossible Than Staying Was Leaving. I Didn't Want To Destroy Anything Or Anybody. I Just Wanted To Slip Quietly Out The Back Door, Without Causing Any Fuss Or Consequences, And Then Not Stop Running Until I Reached Greenland.

I Remember Asking Myself One Night, While I Was Curled Up In The Same Old Corner Of My Same Old Couch In Tears Yet Again Over The Same Old Repetition Of Sorrowful Thoughts, 'is There Anything About This Scene You Can Change, Liz?' And All I Could Think To Do Was Stand Up, Whle Still Sobbing, And Try To Balance On One Foot In The Middle Of The Living Room. Just To Prove That - While I Couldn't Stop The Tears Or Change My Dismal Interior Dialogue - I Was Not Yet Totally Out Of Control: At Least I Could Cry Hysterically While Balanced On One Foot.

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.

Never Go Into Debt To Become A Writer. Always Find Other Ways To Support Yourself So You Can Do The Work You Truly Love For The Right Reasons. Never Ask Your Art To Support You. If You Ask Your Art To Support You It Will Either End Up Comprised Or You'll Be Disappointed With It. It's A Lot To Ask Of Creativity For It To Provide For You Financially. Find A Scrappy Way To Get By And Then Do The Work You Love For The Reasons You Love.

Even In The Worst Tragedies And Crisis, There’s No Reason To Add To Everyone’s Misery By Looking Miserable Yourself.

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?

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

Our Relationship

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.

There Were Times, Especially When I Was Traveling For 'eat, Pray, Love,' When, I Swear To God, I Would Feel This Weight Of My Female Ancestors, All Those Swedish Farmwives From Beyond The Grave Who Were Like, 'go! Go To Naples! Eat More Pizza! Go To India, Ride An Elephant! Do It! Swim In The Indian Ocean. Read Those Books. Learn A Language.'

Being Content With What You Have Already Is An Art Form That Leads To A Peace That Can’t Be Replaced By Anything Else.

Maybe The Difference Between First Marriage And Second Marriage Is That The Second Time At Least You Know You Are Gambling.

Addiction Is The Hallmark Of Every Infatuation-based Love Story.

I'm Still Aspiring To Be A Better And Better Person, But I Think That Disappointments Have Made Me Gentler With Other People And Their Disappointments, The Stuff That They Have To Carry Around And Endure.

There Is A Level Of Grief So Deep That It Stops Resembling Grief At All. The Pain Becomes So Severe That The Body Can No Longer Feel It. The Grief Cauterizes Itself, Scars Over, Prevents Inflated Feeling. Such Numbness Is A Kind Of Mercy.

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?

The Search For God Is A Reversal Of The Normal, Mundane Worldly Order. In Search For God, You Revert From What Attracts You And Swim Toward That Which Is Difficult. You Abandon Your Comforting And Familiar Habits With The Hope (the Mere Hope!) That Something Greater Will Be Offered You In Return For What You Have Given Up.. If We Truly Knew All The Answers In Advance As To The Meaning Of Life And The Nature Of God And The Destiny Of Our Souls, Our Belief Would Not Be A Leap Of Faith And It Would Not Be A Courageous Act Of Humanity; It Would Just Be.. A Prudent Insurance Policy.

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.

You Take Whatever Works From Wherever You Can Find It, And You Keep Moving Toward The Light.

I'm So Excited About School. I'm Such A Shameless Student. I Laid My Clothes Out Last Night, Just Like I Did Before My First Day Of First Grade, With My Patent Leather Shoes And My New Lunch Box. I Hope The Teacher Will Like Me :)

There's A Wonderful Old Italian Joke About A Poor Man Who Goes To Church Every Day And Prays Before The Statue Of A Great Saint,'dear Saint-please, Please, Please...give Me The Grace To Win The Lottery.' This Lament Goes On For Months. Finally The Exasperated Statue Come To Life, Looks Down At The Begging Man And Says In Weary Disgust,'my Son-please, Please, Please...buy A Ticket.

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.

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?

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

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?

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.

I Guess What I Want To Learn Is How To Live In This World And Enjoy Its Delights But Also Devote Myself To God.

Childlessness Doesn't Make People Selfish; Selfishness Makes People Selfish.

Beauty Is Not Required. Beauty Is Accuracy's Distraction.

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.

It Was Like Time Would Stop, And The Dancer Would Sort Of Step Through Some Kind Of Portal And He Wasn't Doing Anything Different Than He Had Ever Done, 1,000 Nights Before, But Everything Would Align. And All Of A Sudden, He Would No Longer Appear To Be Merely Human. He Would Be Lit From Within, And Lit From Below And All Lit Up On Fire With Divinity. And When This Happened, Back Then, People Knew It For What It Was, You Know, They Called It By It's Name. They Would Put Their Hands Together And They Would Start To Chant, "allah, Allah, Allah, God God, God." That's God, You Know.

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.

What Happens And What You Encounter, What You Collide With - It's So Exciting And Revealing About How Much More Interesting And Tricky The Universe Is Than We Think In Our Daily Lives.

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.

We All Want Things To Stay The Same. Settle For Living In Misery Because We Are Afraid Of Change, Of Things Crumbling To Ruins. Ruin Is A Gift. Ruin Is The Road To Transformation.

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.

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.

Oh, Cold World -- I Have Grown So Weary Of You And All Your Horrible Bathrooms.

I Had Always Been Taught That The Pursuit Of Happiness Was My Natural (even National) Birthright. It Is The Emotional Trademark Of My Culture To Seek Happiness. Not Just Any Kind Of Happiness, Either, But Profound Happiness, Even Soaring Happiness. And What Could Possibly Bring A Person More Soaring Happiness Than Romantic Love.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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

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

I See A Lot Of Women Who Can't Travel When They're Young, And Then Their Kids Grow Up And They Become Amazing Adventurers. Travel Is Not Only For The Young. Sometimes It's Wasted On The Young.

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.

At The End Of The Day I Am A Writer, And If I Don't Take Care Of This, No One Else Will.

The End Of The Day

For Most Of Western Civilization There Was No Real Division Between The Realms Of Science, Divinity, And Artistic Endeavor - They Were Just Three Strands Of The Same Braid, All Of Them Pulling Toward The Same Beautiful Desire: To Try To Understand The Workings Of This Curious And Beautiful World. There Were Many People Who Would Have Called Themselves All Three Things At Once: Men Of God, Men Of Science, Men Of The Arts.

If You Want To Get To The Castle, Groceries, You've Got To Swim The Moat.

I'm An Enormous Product Of My Century, I'm A Product Of My Upbringing. I Was Not Aware Of The Fact That I Was Entering Marriage With The Highest Set Of Expectations That Humans Have Ever Brought To The Institution. It Was Really Good To Find That Out. It Doesn't Have To Be The Alpha And The Omega, The Beginning And The End, The Moon And The Stars - It Can Just Be The Moon. It's Enough That It Just Can Be What It Is.

I Was A Writer Before 'eat, Pray, Love,' And I'll Be A Writer After It's Over. It's What I Want To Do For The Rest Of My Life.

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 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.

Man Is A Demon, Man Is A God. Both True.

If I'm Being Forgiving Of Myself, I Could Say I'm Somebody Who Was Really Hungry For Experiences. The Same Thing That Would Make Me Go Try To Be A Trail Cook On A Ranch Was The Same Thing That Would Make Me Want To Have Sex With A Couple Cowboys While I Was There.

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

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.

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

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.

Love Renders All Of Our Plans And All Of Our Hopes A Gamble.

Life's Metaphors Are God's Instructions.

Happiness Is The Consequence Of Personal Effort. You Fight For It, Strive For It, Insist Upon It, And Sometimes Even Travel Around The World Looking For It. You Have To Participate Relentlessly In The Manifestations Of Your Own Blessings. And Once You Have Achieved A State Of Happiness, You Must Never Become Lax About Maintaining It. You Must Make A Mighty Effort To Keep Swimming Upward Into That Happiness Forever, To Stay Afloat On Top Of It.

I Think That If You Can Roast A Chicken, You Can Get Whatever You Want Out Of A Woman.

Until-as Often Happened During Those First Months Travel, Whenever I Would Feel Such Happiness-my Guilt Alarm Went Off. I Heard My Ex-husband's Voice Speaking Disdainfully In My Ear: So This Is What You Gave Up Everything For? This Is Why You Gutted Our Entire Life Together? For A Few Stalks Of Asparagus And An Italian Newspaper? I Replied Aloud To Him: "first Of All," I Said, "i'm Very Sorry, But This Isn't Your Business Anymore. And Secondly, To Answer You Question...yes.

The Mysterious Magnet Is Either There, Buried Somewhere Deep Behind The Sternum, Or It Is Not.

That Competition And The Struggle For Existence Is The Mechanism Behind This State Of Perpetual Change.

Marriage Is An Ongoing, Centuries-long Social Experiment That Is Mostly Controlled By The Individuals In The Relationships Who Insist On Determining What The Relationship Terms Are Going To Be. And That's Why The Terms Of Marriage Change With Every Century And Decade. We're Shaping It From The Inside. Marriage Endures Because It Evolves. Obviously It Does. None Of Us Would Accept Marriage On Its 13th Century Terms, Not Even The Most Conservative People...

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.

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!"

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