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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.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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I Tried To Reassure

Elizabeth Gilbert

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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.

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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.

Sometimes Life Is Too Hard To Be Alone, And Sometimes Life Is Too Good To Be Alone.

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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.

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

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.

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.

This Was My Moment To Look For The Kind Of Healing And Peace That Can Only Come From Solitude.

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

It's Not Enough For Me To Just Hear About Something Or Read About Something, I Wanna Know It In My Bones.

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!

You Are Here And You Are Allowed To Be Here And Therefore You Are Allowed To Make Decisions About Yourself And The People In Your Life; Rather Than Sort Of Backing Up And Making Sure It's Okay With Everybody At Every Turn.

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.

There Are Times When The Only Access I Have To The Truest Person That I Am Is When I'm Alone And Trying To Solve A Sentence. It's Exciting, Even When It's Frustrating, Even When I Can't Do It Right.

The Only Place The Mind Will Ever Find Peace Is Inside The Silence Of The Heart. That's Where You Need To Go

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience Of God.

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.

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?

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.

God Dwells Within You, As You.

Bali Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray And Love

A Woman's Place Is In The Kitchen...sitting In A Comfortable Chair, With Her Feet Up, Drinking A Glass Of Wine And Watching Her Husband Cook Dinner.

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.

As I Got Older, I Discovered That Nothing Within Me Cried Out For A Baby. My Womb Did Not Seem To Have Come Equipped With That Famously Ticking Clock. Unlike So Many Of My Friends, I Did Not Ache With Longing Whenever I Saw An Infant. (though I Did Ache With Longing, It Is True, Whenever I Saw A Good Used-book Shop)

A True Soul Mate Is Probably The Most Important Person You'll Ever Meet, Because They Tear Down Your Walls And Smack You Awake. But To Live With A Soul Mate Forever? Nah. Too Painful. Soul Mates, They Come Into Your Life Just To Reveal Another Layer Of Yourself To You, And Then Leave.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

To Travel Is Worth Any Cost Or Sacrifice.

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."

Only The Young And Stupid Are Confident About Sex And Romance.

Given That Life Is So Short, Do I Really Want To Spend One-ninetieth Of My Remaining Days On Earth Reading Edward Gibbon?

Up Until The Middle Of The Nineteenth Century, Men Of Science Were All Believers. Most Of The Great Early English Naturalists Were Also Ministers; They Were The Only Ones Who Had Education And Leisure For Such Pursuits. Darwin Himself Almost Became A Minister. God's Power Was Always Thought To Be Most Easily And Obviously Revealed In The Majestic Works Of Nature.

Library Is A Beautiful Old Thing

But Vegetarians Can Eat This...because Intestines Aren't Even Meat, Liz. They're Just Sh$*.

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

The Health Of The Planet Is Affected By The Health Of Every Individual On It !

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.

Embrace The Beautiful Mess That 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.

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.

In Order For Marriage To Endure It Has To Change Along With Us, And It Does That Very Graciously. And In The End I Find There Is Something Kind Of Moving About It: The Fact That People Continue To Insist On Choosing Somebody To Build A Life With.

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

I Have A Lot Of Trouble Forgiving Myself For Being So Dumb... But Yes, Of Course, The Big Generous Compassionate View That You Should Take Of Yourself And Of All Events Is: What A Glorious Circus Train This Has Been, And What A Wonderful Messy Parade, And All Of Those Steps Took Me Here, Where I Precisely Need To Be Now, So God Bless It.

They Say That There Are Three Kinds Of People In The World. There Are People Who Never Learn One Way Or Another Anything; There Are People Who Learn From Their Own Mistakes, Eventually And With Great Pain; And Then There Are The Really Wise People Who Learn From Other People's Mistakes And Spare Themselves The Suffering.

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.

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.

Your Fear Is The Most Boring Thing About You.

Overcoming Fear

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.

Virginia Woolf Wrote, "across The Broad Continent Of A Woman's Life Falls The Shadow Of A Sword." On One Side Of That Sword, She Said, There Lies Convention And Tradition And Order, Where All Is Correct. But On The Other Side Of That Sword, If You're Crazy Enough To Cross It And Choose A Life That Does Not Follow Convention, "all Is Confusion." Nothing Follows A Regular Course. Her Argument Was That The Crossing Of The Shadow Of That Sword May Bring A More Interesting Existence To A Woman, But You Can Bet It Will Be More Perilous.

Don't Be Afraid. Don't Be Daunted. Just Do Your Job. Continue To Show Up For Your Piece Of It, Whatever That Might Be.

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I Think There's More Real In The Unreal Than There Is In The Real.

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.

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.

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!

I Feel Like If I Were To Get Another Tattoo, It Would Probably Be Those Two Words. Just Stubborn, Stubborn, Stubborn Gladness.

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

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.

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

The Mosquitoes Here Are Big Enough To Rape A Chicken.

My Life's Accomplishments? Sanity, And You.

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

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)

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..."

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.

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

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.

Om Namah Shivaya, Meaning, I Honor The Divinity That Resides Within Me.

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.

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.

The Gods Are Fond Of The Cryptic And Dislike The Evident.

Look For God. Look For God Like A Man With His Head On Fire Looks For Water.

Let Me Ask You Something, In All The Years That You Have Undressed In Front Of A Gentleman Has He Ever Asked You To Leave? Has He Ever Walked Out And Left? No? It’s Because He Doesn’t Care! He’s In A Room With A Naked Girl, He Just Won The Lottery

Zen Masters Say You Cannot See Your Reflection In Running Water, Only In Still Water.

Before You Realize This Truth, Say The Yogis, You Will Always Be In Despair, A Notion Nicely Expressed In This Exasperated Line From The Greek Stoic Philosopher Epictetus: 'you Bear God Within You, Poor Wretch, And Know It Not.

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.

I Am Stronger Than Depression And I Am Braver Than Loneliness And Nothing Will Ever Exhaust Me.

In Fact, It Was All I Could Do To Stop Myself From Saying, 'i've Always Been A Big Fan Of Your Work.

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

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.

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 Wanted To Experience Both. I Wanted Worldly Enjoyment And Divine Transcendence. I Wanted What The Greeks Called Kalos Kai Agathos, The Singular Balance Of The Good And The Beautiful. I'd Been Missing Both During These Last Hard Years, Because Both Pleasure And Devotion Require A Stress-free Space In Which To Flourish And I'd Been Living In A Giant Trash Compactor Of Nonstop Anxiety. As For How To Balance The Urge For Pleasure Against The Longing For Devotion...well, Surely There Was A Way To Learn That Trick.

You Are Still Young, So You Think Only Of Your Own Self. You Do Not Notice The Tribulations That Occur All Around You, To Other People. Do Not Protest; It Is True. I Am Not Condemning You. I Was As Selfish As You, When I Was Your Age. It Is The Custom Of The Young To Be Selfish... But Someday You Will Understand That Nobody Passes Through This World Without Suffering-no Matter What You Think Of Them And Their Supposed Good Fortune.

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.

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

Teach Your Heart That This Is Destiny

Bhuta Ia, Dewa Ia. (bali Expression Meaning Man Is A Demon, Man Is A God.)

He Was Still My Romantic Hero And I Was Still His Living Dream

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.

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.

In Every Possible Instance Saint Paul Begged Christians To Restrain Themselves To Contain Their Carnal Yearnings To Live Solitary And Sexless Lives On Earth As It Is In Heaven. "but If They Cannot Contain " Paul Finally Conceded Then "let Them Marry For It Is Better To Marry Than To Burn." Which Is Perhaps The Most Begrudging Endorsement Of Matrimony In Human History.

Creative People Always Suffer From Depression Because We're So Super Sensitive And Special?

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 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.

To Lose Balance Sometimes For Love Is Part Of Living A Balanced Life.

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

I'm Not Particularly Inventive. If You Left Me In а Room And Told Me To Write A Novel, I Wouldn't Be Able To Do It. But If You Gave Me Two Years In A Public Library Around The Corner, I Could. It All Comes From Sort Of Mixing The True And The Invented. I'm Not A Fabulist. I'm More Of A Reporter.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance

A True Soul Mate Is A Mirror, The Person Who Shows You Everything That Is Holding You Back, The Person Who Brings You To Your Own Attention So You Can Change Your Life.

God Is An Experience Of Supreme Love.

The Love That Moves The Sun And The Other Stars.

To Sit Patiently With A Yearning That Has Not Yet Been Fulfilled, And To Trust That, That Fulfillment Will Come, Is Quite Possibly One Of The Most Powerful "magic Skills" That Human Beings Are Capable Of. It Has Been Noted By Almost Every Ancient Wisdom Tradition

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.

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

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.

[italian Men] Are Like Show Poodles. Sometimes They Look So Good I Want To Applaud.

There's A Lot Of Disorder That Comes Along With Wanting To Know Everything And Wanting To Try Everything And Wanting To Experience Everything, But There's A Lot Of Knowledge That Comes Out Of It Too.

Despite Having Written Five Books, I Worry That I Have Not Written The Right Kinds Of Books, Or That Perhaps I Have Dedicated Too Much Of My Life To Writing, And Have Therefore Neglected Other Aspects Of My Being.

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.

Please Go To This Pizzeria. Order The Margherita Pizza With Double Mozzarella. If You Do Not Eat This Pizza When You Are In Naples, Please Lie To Me And Tell Me That You Did.

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

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.

We Search For Happiness Everywhere, But We Are Like Tolstoy's Fabled Beggar Who Spent His Life Sitting On A Pot Of Gold, Under Him The Whole Time. Your Treasure--your Perfection--is Within You Already. But To Claim It, You Must Leave The Buy Commotion Of The Mind And Abandon The Desires Of The Ego And Enter Into The Silence Of The Heart.

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!"

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

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.

The Resting Place Of The Mind Is The Heart. The Only Thing The Mind Hears All Day Is Clanging Bells And Noise And Argument, And All It Wants Is Quietude. The Only Place The Mind Will Ever Find Peace Is Inside The Silence Of The Heart. That's Where You Need To Go.

I Think I Deserve Something Beautiful.

The Yogic Path Is About Disentangling The Built-in Glitches Of The Human Condition, Which I'm Going To Over-simply Define Here As The Heartbreaking Inability To Sustain Contentment.

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

Marriage Is Not A Game For The Young.

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.

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.

I Would Like To Spend The Rest Of My Days In A Place So Silent–and Working At A Pace So Slow–that I Would Be Able To Hear Myself Living.

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.

I've Read That Under Trauma, That You Have This Ability To Kind Of Disconnect From The Experience.

Equally Disquieting Are The Times When We Do Make A Choice, Only To Later Feel As Though We Have Murdered Some Other Aspect Of Our Being By Settling On One Single Concrete Decision.

A Fish And A Bird May Indeed Fall In Love, But Where Shall They Live?

Falling In Love

The Culture Of Rome Just Doesn't Match The Culture Of Yoga, Not As Far As I Can See. In Fact, I've Decided That Rome And Yoga Don't Have Anything In Common At All. Except For The Way They Both Kind Of Remind You Of The Word Toga.

The Thing That I Do Try To Convey Is, Don't Do What I Did - But Ask What I Asked.

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.

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.

The Beauty Of Doing Nothing

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

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

I Thought About The Relentless Thought-processing, Soul-devouring Machine That Is My Brain, And Wondered How On Earth I Was Ever Going To Master It. Then I Remembered That Line From Jaws And Couldn't Help Smiling: 'we're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat.

I'd Learned Enough From Life's Experiences To Understand That Destiny's Interventions Can Sometimes Be Read As Invitation For Us To Address And Even Surmount Our Biggest Fears. It Doesn't Take A Great Genius To Recognize That When You Are Pushed By Circumstance To Do The One Thing You Have Always Most Specifically Loathed And Feared, This Can Be, At The Very Least, An Interesting Growth Opportunity.

Everything Was A Miracle Until We Solved It. ... The First Man Who Ever Saw A Flying Fish Probably Thought He Was Witnessing A Miracle - And The First Man Who Ever Described A Flying Fish Was Doubtless Called A Liar.

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.

True Power Comes From Standing In Your Own Truth And Walking Your Own Path.

You Can Measure The Happiness Of A Marriage By The Number Of Scars That Each Partner Carries On Their Tongues, Earned From Years Of Biting Back Angry Words.

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

My Whole Life I've Been An Over-giver. My General Operating Policy Has Always Been, 'if It Belongs To Me, Don't Worry: You Can Have It!'

Your Home Is Whatever In This World You Love More Than You Love Yourself.

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.

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

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

I've Always Been Afraid Of Saying No To People Because I Don't Want Them To Be Disappointed And Dislike Me.

I Have A Rigid Self-accountability. You Have To Work Hard.

I Completely Respect The Ways People Are Bound In The Lives That They Have, Whether It's Because Of Forces Outside Of Their Control Or Choices That They've Made That They Want To Honor With Their Own Responsibilities And Obligations - Taking Care Of People Around Them Or Being A Part Of A Community, Or Their Work.

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

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.

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

There's This Great Kind Of Spooky Dance That Happens That I Can't Access Any Other Way. I Think Most Of Us Are Given Kind Of One Pathway To That Dance, And That's Why I'm A Writer. It's The Only Way I Can Get There. I Can't Do It Through Art, I Can't Do It Through Singing, I Can't Do It Through Mothering, I Can't Do It Through Invention.

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.

I Have Good Idea, For If You Meet Some Person From Different Religion And He Want To Make Argument About God. My Idea Is, You Listen To Everything This Man Say About God. Never Argue About God With Him. Best Thing To Say Is, 'i Agree With You.' Then You Go Home, Pray What You Want. This Is My Idea For People To Have Peace About Religion.

Then My Mother Shocked Me. She Said, " All Those Things That You Want From Your Relationship, Liz? I Have Always Wanted Those Things Too." [she] Showed Me The Handful Of Bullets She'd Had To Bite Over The Decades In Order To Stay Happily Married (and She Was Happily Married...) To My Father. "you Have To Understand How Little I Was Raised To Expect That I Desired In Life, Honey. Remember- I Come From A Different Time And Place... And You Have To Understand How Much I Love Your Father.

My Husband Is Not American. He Was Born In Brazil, Where He Grew Up Under A Filthy, Corrupt Dictatorship. In His Twenties, He Moved To Europe, Where He Lived For A While Under Various Socialist Democracies. He Spent A Few Years On A Kibbutz In Israel, Living Out A Utopian Experiment In Communal Existence.

The Sound Universe Is Also Spectacular Around Here. In The Evenings There's A Cricket Orchestra With Frogs Providing The Bass Line. In The Dead Of Night The Dogs Howl About How Misunderstood They Are. Before Dawn The Roosters For Miles Around Announce How Freaking Cool It Is To Be Roosters.

In The End, Though, Maybe We Must All Give Up Trying To Pay Back The People In This World Who Sustain Our Lives. In The End, Maybe It's Wiser To Surrender Before The Miraculous Scope Of Human Generosity And To Just Keep Saying Thank You, Forever And Sincerely, For As Long As We Have Voices.

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

People Always Fall In Love With The Most Perfect Aspects Of Each Other's Personalities. Who Wouldn't? Anybody Can Love The Most Wonderful Parts Of Another Person. But That's Not The Clever Trick. The Really Clever Trick Is This: Can You Accept The Flaws? Can You Look At Your Partner's Faults Honestly And Say, 'i Can Work Around That. I Can Make Something Out Of It.'? Because The Good Stuff Is Always Going To Be There, And It's Always Going To Pretty And Sparkly, But The Crap Underneath Can Ruin You.

You Can Butcher The Sheep Only Once. But If You Are Careful, You Can Shear The Sheep Every Year.

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.

All I Could Say Was, "i Don't Know What To Do." I Remember Her Taking Me By The Shoulders And Looking Me In The Eye With A Calm Smile And Saying Simply, "tell The Truth, Tell The Truth, Tell The Truth.

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.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance. Faith Is A Way Of Saying "yes, I Pre-accept The Terms Of The Universe And I Embrace In Advance What I Am Presently Incapable Of Understanding.

Moss Grows Where Nothing Else Can Grow. It Grows On Bricks. It Grows On Tree Bark And Roofing Slate. It Grows In The Arctic Circle And In The Balmiest Tropics; It Also Grows On The Fur Of Sloths, On The Backs Of Snails, On Decaying Human Bones. ... It Is A Resurrection Engine. A Single Clump Of Mosses Can Lie Dormant And Dry For Forty Years At A Stretch, And Then Vault Back Again Into Life With A Mere Soaking Of Water.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Longing To Travel While You Are Already Traveling Is, I Admit, A Kind Of Greedy Madness

We Don't Realize That, Somewhere Within Us All, There Does Exist A Supreme Self Who Is Eternally At Peace.

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

The Trick At Every Turn Was To Endure The Test Of Living For As Long As Possible. The Odds Of Survival Were Punishingly Slim, For The World Was Naught By A School Of Calamity And An Endless Burning Furnace Of Tribulation. But Those Who Survived The World Shaped It--even As The World, Simultaneously, Shaped Them.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance. If Faith Were Rational, It Wouldn't Be By Definition Faith. Faith Is Walking Face-first And Full Speed Into The Dark.

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 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.

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

I Will Not Harbor Unhealthy Thoughts Anymore.

Most Of Humanity, He Said, Have Eyes That Are So Caked Shut With The Dust Of Deception They Will Never See The Truth, No Matter Who Tries To Help Them.

Ketut, Why Is Life All Crazy Like This?" I Asked My Medicine Man The Next Day...so What Can We Do About The Craziness Of The World?" Nothing." Ketut Laughed, But With A Dose Of Kindness. "this Is Nature Of World. This Is Destiny. Worry About Your Craziness Only-make You In Peace.

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 Equal Parts Loved Him And Could Not Stand Him. I Couldn't Wake Him To Share In My Distress.

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.

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

I Am Far More Of A Loner Than People Would Imagine. But I Am The Most Gregarious And Socially Interactive Loner You Ever Met. The Thing Is, I Am Fascinated By People's Stories And I'm Very Talkative And Can't Ever Say No To Anything Or Anyone, So I Tend To Over-socialize, To Give Away Too Much Of My Time To The Many People I Adore.

By Unnerving Definition, Anything That The Heart Has Chosen For Its Own Mysterious Reasons It Can Always Unchoose Later—again, For Its Own Mysterious Reasons.

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?

To Feel Physically Comfortable With Someone Else's Body Is Not A Decision You Make. It Has Very Little Thing To Do With How Two People Think Or Act Or Talk Or Even Look. The Mysterious Magnet Is Either There, Buried Somewhere Deep Behind The Sternum, Or It Is Not.

Decisions You Make

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.

Life's Metaphors Are God's Instructions.

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.

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