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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.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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In Order For Marriage

Elizabeth Gilbert

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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.

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Someday You're Gonna Look Back On This Moment Of Your Life As Such A Sweet Time Of Grieving. You'll See That You Were In Mourning And Your Heart Was Broken, But Your Life Was Changing.

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

I Think Of Modern Marriage As A Car Strangely Fashioned Out Of An Old Abandoned Horse Carriage, Built Upon The Framework Of A Mule Cart. All The Original Engineering Is Still There, Underneath It All.

Embrace The Beautiful Mess That You Are.

I Have These New Policies Toward My Life, Like 'i Will Not Accelerate When I See The Yellow Light.'

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

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

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

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.

Whatever This Feeling Is - This Is What I Have Been Praying For. And This Is Also What I Have Been Praying To.

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

Learning Something New

The Day Is Ending. It's Time For Something That Was Beautiful To Turn Into Something Else That Is Beautiful. Now, Let Go.

Eat Pray And Love

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.

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.

Fear Can Have A Voice, But It Doesn't Get A Vote.

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.

I Promised Todd [willingham] That I Would Attend The Execution. ... It Was Impossible For Me To Go. I Was Incapable Of That Sort Of Travel. Sitting In A Chair That Long, Driving To Huntsville Just Wouldn't Have Happened. ... I'm Sure I Would Have Been There. It's Something I Know. I Would Not Have Denied Him That, But The Accident Kept Me From Being There. At Some Level, The Universe Was Giving Me The Excuse For Not Being There. ... The Universe Was Like, "oh, You Don't Have To Watch This." ... It Would Have Been A Horrible Thing, But I'm Sure I Would Have Gone.

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'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.

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.

There’s A Crack (or Cracks) In Everyone…that’s How The Light Of God Gets In.

A Soul Mates Purpose Is To Shake You Up, Tear Apart Your Ego A Little Bit, Show You Your Obstacles And Addictions, Break Your Heart Open So New Light Can Get In, Make You So Desperate And Out Of Control That You Have To Transform Your Life, Then Introduce You To Your Spiritual Master.

The Best We Can Do Then, In Response To Our Incomprehensible And Dangerous World, Is To Practice Holding Equilibrium Internally - No Matter What Insanity Is Transpiring Out There.

Dangerous World

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

You Have Now Reached Infatuation’s Final Destination—the Complete And Merciless Devaluation Of Self.

Dear Me, How I Love A Library.

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.

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.

It's Still Two Human Beings Trying To Get Along, So It's Going To Be Complicated. And Love Is Always Complicated. But Humans Must Try To Love Each Other, Darling. We Must Get Our Hearts Broken Sometimes. This Is A Good Sign, Having A Broken Heart. It Means We Have Tried For Something.

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

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

My Love Affair With (him) Had A Wonderful Element Of Romance To It, Which I Will Always Cherish. But It Was Not An Infatuation, And Here’s How I Can Tell: Because I Did Not Demand That He Become My Great Emancipator Or My Source Of All Life, Nor Did I Immediately Vanish Into That Man’s Chest Cavity Like A Twisted, Unrecognizable, Parasitical Homonculus. During Our Long Period Of Courtship, I Remained Intact Within My Own Personality, And I Allowed Myself To Meet (him) For Who He Was.

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

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 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.

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.

I Am Alone, I Am All Alone, I Am Completely Alone. Grasping This Reality, I Let Go Of My Bag, Drop To My Knees And Press My Forehead Against The Floor. There, I Offer Up To The Universe A Fervent Prayer Of Thanks. First In English. Then In Italian. And Then - Just To Get The Point Across - In Sanskrit.

But The Very Fact That This World Is So Challenging Is Exactly Why You Sometimes Must Reach Out Of Its Jurisdiction For Help, Appealing To A Higher Authority In Order To Find Your Comfort.

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

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.

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 Is A Nice Metaphor, Too, About Mothers And Daughters - That When It Came Time For Me To Make My Own, I Was Making A Completely Different Garden Than The One That My Mom Has. They Don't Look Like They Came From Relatives. Hers Is A Very Productive And Pragmatic Vegetable Garden, And Mine Is A Ridiculous Overabundance Of Useless Plants. It Doesn't Feed Anybody, It Doesn't Serve Any Purpose.

Someone Asked Me If I Would Like To Write A Man On Death Row, Be A Pen Pal, And I Was Like, Sure. I Volunteered. I Had Been In A Place In My Life - A Relationship Had Ended; My Parents Were Getting Elderly - I Was Kind Of Adrift. The Name That Was Given To Me, Just Randomly, Was Todd Willingham. And He Wrote Me A Letter, And In This Letter, He Thanked Me For Writing Him And [said That] If I Would Like To Visit, He Would Put Me On His Visitor List... I Was Just Really Struck By The Letter From Todd. It Was Very Polite; It Was Very Kind.

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.

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.

But At Some Point You Have To Make Peace With What You Were Given And If God Wanted Me To Be A Shy Girl With Think, Dark Hair, He Would Have Made Me That Way, But He Didn't. Useful, Then, Might Be To Accept How I Was Made And Embody Myself Fully Therein.

Don't Be Daunted. Just Do Your Job. Continue To Show Up For Your Piece Of It, Whatever That Might Be. If Your Job Is To Dance, Do Your Dance. If The Divine, Cockeyed Genius Assigned To Your Case Decides To Let Some Sort Of Wonderment Be Glimpsed, For Just One Moment Through Your Efforts, Then 'ole!' And If Not, Do Your Dance Anyhow. And 'ole!' To You, Nonetheless. I Believe This And I Feel That We Must Teach It. 'ole!' To You, Nonetheless, Just For Having The Sheer Human Love And Stubbornness To Keep Showing Up.

If I'd Had Any Way Of Knowing That Things Were- As Lily Tomlin Once Said- Going To Get A Whole Lot Worse Before They Got Worse, I'm Not Sure How I Would Have Slept That Night.

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.

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.

We Alter And Customize The Thing Every Century, Every Generation, Every Day - Both In The Courts And In Our Own Homes. And Marriage Accepts Our Modifications Gracefully. Marriage Adapts, Evolves And (in A Manner That I Find Miraculous And Kind Of Inspiring) Somehow Keeps Chugging Along.

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.

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.

Maybe [artistry] Doesn't Have To Be Quite So Full Of Anguish If You Never Happened To Believe, In The First Place, That The Most Extraordinary Aspects Of Your Being Came From You. But Maybe If You Just Believed That They Were On Loan To You From Some Unimaginable Source For Some Exquisite Portion Of Your Life To Be Passed Along When You're Finished ... It Starts To Change Everything.

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.

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.

The Only Thing You Need To Do For Now Is Get Some Rest And Take Good Care Of Yourself Until You Do Know The Answer

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

I Think Another Way That You Can Really Harm Yourself As An Artist Is By Buying Into The Mythology That It's Really Important.

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

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

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 See Women Who Have This Struggle Between What They Know Is Right, What They Know Is Necessary, What They Know Is Healthy, What They Know Is Good For Them, What They Know Is Good For The Work That They Need To Do, What They Know Is Good For Their Bodies, What They Know Is Good For Their Families - All Too Often Ending That Statement With The Upturned Question Mark: "if It's Okay With Everyone?" Still Asking, Still Requesting, Still Filing Petitions For Somebody To Say That It's All Right.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

So Miss Him. Send Him Some Love And Light Every Time You Think About Him, Then Drop It.

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.

You Were Given Life; It Is Your Duty (and Also Your Entitlement As A Human Being) To Find Something Beautiful Within Life, No Matter How Slight.

You Are Accidentally Leaving Your Dna All Over Everything In A Novel Because It's All Coming From You.

I Believe In Miracles, I Believe In The Law Of Attraction, But Even I Don't Think I'm Big Enough To Manifest Five Asian Elephants Cloaked In Gold.

I Think Sometimes We Look At Other People's Marriages And We Think They Must Always Be So Happy Together. I Don't Know Anybody Who's Married For A Long Time Who Hasn't Somehow Made Room In Their Love Story For The Hate And Resentment That They Sometimes Feel Toward Each Other.

I Still Can’t Say Whether I Ever Want Children….i Can Only Say How I Feel Now--grateful To Be On My Own. I Also Know That I Won’t Go Forth And Have Children Just In Case I Might Regret Missing It Later In Life; I Don’t Think This Is A Strong Enough Motivation To Bring More Babies Onto The Earth.

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 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.

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

Desire For Success

There Are Only Two Questions That Human Beings Have Ever Fought Over, All Through History. 'how Much Do You Love Me?' And, 'who's In Charge?' Everything Else Is Somehow Manageable. But These Two Questions Of Love And Control Undo Us All, Trip Us Up And Cause War, Grief, And Suffering.

The Mosquitoes Here Are Big Enough To Rape A Chicken.

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

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

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.

God Wants Us To Be In Joy, God Wants Us To Be Happy.

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

Bali Eat Pray Love

Deep Grief Sometimes Is Almost Like A Specific Location, A Coordinate On A Map Of Time. When You Are Standing In That Forest Of Sorrow, You Cannot Imagine That You Could Ever Find Your Way To A Better Place. But If Someone Can Assure You That They Themselves Have Stood In That Same Place, And Now Have Moved On, Sometimes This Will Bring Hope

The Beauty Of Doing Nothing

There's No Trouble In This World So Serious That It Can't Be Cured With A Hot Bath, A Glass Of Whiskey, And The Book Of Common Prayer.

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

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."

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.

Most Of All, I Can Choose My Thoughts.

Bali Eat Pray Love

What Do I Believe That I Deserve In This Life?

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.

I Was A Veritable Johnny Appleseed Of Grand Expectations, And All I Reaped For My Trouble Was A Harvest Of Bitter Fruit.

I Wondered, "why Have I Been Chasing Happiness My Whole Life When Bliss Was Here The Entire Time?

My Life Acccomplishments? Sanity, And You

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.

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.

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.

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.

Clearing Out All Your Misery Gets You Out Of The Way. You Cease Being An Obstacle, Not Only To Yourself But To Anyone Else. Only Then Are You Free To Serve And Enjoy Other People.

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.

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

There Is So Much About My Fate That I Cannot Control, But Other Things Do Fall Under My Jurisdiction. There Are Certain Lottery Tickets I Can Buy, Thereby Increasing My Odds Of Finding Contentment. I Can Decide How I Spend My Time, Whom I Interact With, Whom I Share My Body And Life And Money And Energy With.

Creativity Itself Doesn't Care At All About Results - The Only Thing It Craves Is The Process. Learn To Love The Process And Let Whatever Happens Next Happen, Without Fussing Too Much About It. Work Like A Monk, Or A Mule, Or Some Other Representative Metaphor For Diligence. Love The Work. Destiny Will Do What It Wants With You, Regardless.

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.

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)

To Be Prosperous And Happy In Life, Henry, It Is Simple. Pick One Woman, Pick It Well, And Surrender.

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."

Marriage Is - Among Other Things - A Study In Contradiction And Disappointment, And Inside That Reality There Is Space For Us To Truly Learn How To Love.

Once Henry Had Heard A Crying Noise At Sea, And Had Seen A Mermaid Floating On The Ocean's Surface. The Mermaid Had Been Injured By A Shark. Henry Had Pulled The Mermaid Out Of The Water With A Rope, And She Had Died In His Arms..."what Language Did The Mermaid Speak?" Alma Wanted To Know, Imagining That It Like Almost Have To Be Greek. "english!" Henry Said. "by God, Plum, Why Would I Rescue A Deuced Foreign Mermaid?

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.

My Mom Is A Master Gardener And I Grew Up On A Farm. I Came Back To It Really Late In Life And Discovered That Despite How Lazy And Inattentive I Was As A Child, I Had Managed To Accidentally Learn Quite A Bit About Gardening.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

I Was Just Really Appalled, And I Really Kept Quiet Until I Saw The Governor [rick Perry] Get On And Repeat The Same Words That The Prosecution Had Used In The Penalty Phase: That He [todd Willingham] Was A Monster. And That Got Me To Get On To The Computer And Connect With Some Of The Media And Say: "i Have His Letters. He Wasn't A Monster. He Was A Caring Individual." Let Them See Another Side.

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.

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

It Is Completely Acceptable To Be Tired Because It Means You're Working Hard. But It's Not Acceptable To Be Stressed Because That Means Things Are Going Wrong Or Your Head Is Broken.

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.

I Am A Better Person When I Have Less On My Plate.

Your Problem Is You Don't Understand What That Word Means. People Think A Soul Mate Is Your Perfect Fit, And That's What Everyone Wants. But A True Soul Mate Is A Mirror, The Person Who Shows You Everything That's Holding You Back, The Person Who Brings You To Your Attention So You Can Change Your Life. 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 They Leave.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

Here Was Something I Already Knew To Be True About Myself: Just As There Are Some Wives Who Will Occasionally Need A Break From Their Husbands In Order To Visit A Spa For The Weekend With Their Girlfriends, I Will Always Be The Sort Of Wife Who Occasionally Needs A Break From Her Husband In Order To Visit Cambodia. Just For A Few Days!

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.

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.

Nothing Is Less Efficient Than Perfectionism.

Of Course, We All Inevitably Work Too Hard, Then We Get Burned Out And Have To Spend The Whole Weekend In Our Pajamas, Eating Cereal Straight Out Of The Box And Staring At The Tv In A Mild Coma (which Is The Opposite Of Working, Yes, But Not Exactly The Same Thing As Pleasure).

It's Not An Accident That Both My Sister And I Are Writers. Our Parents Created An Accidental Petri Dish. My Family Has Great Storytellers, And I Grew Up In A Very Funny, Conversational House And Didn't Have Television. This Small Family Farm Was A Bubble World That Didn't Have Much To Do With Reality.

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 :)

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

Once Upon A Time

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.

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.

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 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.

That Is Who Barack Obama Is - A Person Of Admirable Character - And That Is Who He Has Remained For Me Over These Last Four Years. I Have Not Agreed With His Every Decision, But Never Once Have I Seen Him Break His Cool, Lose His Composure, Or Abandon His Insightful Perspective - Even During The Most Serious And/or Absurd National Disasters.

You Never Know How A Good Quest Is Going To End.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Library Is A Beautiful Old Thing

But Why Must Everything Have A Practical Application? I'd Been Such A Diligent Soldier For Years - Working, Producing, Never Missing A Deadline, Taking Care Of My Loved Ones, My Gums And My Credit Record, Voting, Etc. Is This Lifetime Supposed To Be Only About Duty? In This Dark Period Of Loss, Did I Need Any Justification For Learning Italian Other Than That It Was The Only Thing I Could Imagine Bringing Me Any Pleasure Right Now?

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

[my Friend And I] Decided, We'll Go To Corsicana, And We'll See What The People In Corsicana Say. ... We Just Started Meeting People And Talking To Them, And The More I Heard The Stories, The More Red Flags Kept Popping Up. There Was This Disconnect Between This Person [todd Willingham] That I'm Reading In The Court Records, The Prosecutor's Statements, And This Person That I'm Learning About.

Oh, I Just Want What We All Want: A Comfortable Couch, A Nice Beverage, A Weekend Of No Distractions And A Book That Will Stop Time, Lift Me Out Of My Quotidian Existence And Alter My Thinking Forever.

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

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

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.

I Think How Badly Things Can Go Wrong In Our Judicial System. All It Took Was One Person Saying That This Was A Deliberately Set Fire, And Then A Whole Chain Of Information Became Malevolent.criminal Past - That Worked All In Their Favor To Create This "monster" - And They Even Used The Word "monster." It's Like, Let's Ensure That The Public Thinks He's An Evil Individual.

When The Karma Of A Relationship Is Done, Only Love Remains. It's Safe. Let Go.

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.

God Is An Experience Of Supreme Love.

Parla Come Magni,' It Means, 'speak The Way You Eat,' Or In My Personal Translation: 'say It Like You Eat It.' It's A Reminder - When You're Making A Big Deal Out Of Explaining Something, When You're Searching For The Right Words - To Keep Your Language As Simple And Direct As Roman Rood. Don't Make A Big Production Out Of It. Just Lay It On The Table.

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.

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

If You're Alive, You're A Creative Person.

The Appreciation Of Pleasure Can Be The Anchor Of Humanity.

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

Your Tears Are My Prayers.

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!"

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.

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.

Ruin Is A Gift. Ruin Is The Road To Transformation.

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

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

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

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].

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.

Eat Pray Love Book

Best Eat Pray Love

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?

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.

Attraversiamo (meaning "lets Cross Over" In Italian)

When I Read The Article [in The New Yorker] By David Grann, I Was Very Struck By People Responding To The Article, Of People Thinking I Was Such A Hero And What A Wonderful Person I Was, And I Didn't Feel That At All. I Felt Like I Had Very Much, Like Todd [willingham], Taken A Path Of Self-preservation.

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.

Why Must Everything Be Repeat And Repeat, Never Finish, Never Resting? You Work So Hard One Day, But The Next Day You Must Only Work Again. You Eat, But The Next Day, You Are Already Hungry. You Find Love, Then Love Goes Away. You Are Born With Nothing, You Work Hard, Then You Die With Nothing. You Are Young, Then You Are Old. No Matter How Hard You Work, You Cannot Stop Getting Old. - Wayan

The Hopi Indians Thought That The World’s Religions Each Contained One Spiritual Thread, And That These Threads Are Always Seeking Each Other, Wanting To Join. When All The Threads Are Finally Woven Together They Will Form A Rope That Will Pull Us Out Of This Dark Cycle Of History And Into The Next Realm.

There Is So Much About My Fate That I Cannot Control, But Other Things Do Fall Under The Jurisdiction. I Can Decide How I Spend My Time, Whom I Interact With, Whom I Share My Body And Life And Money And Energy With. I Can Select What I Can Read And Eat And Study. I Can Choose How I'm Going To Regard Unfortunate Circumstances In My Life-whether I Will See Them As Curses Or Opportunities. I Can Choose My Words And The Tone Of Voice In Which I Speak To Others. And Most Of All, I Can Choose My Thoughts.

When I Diagnose My Depression Now, I Think It Was Partially About Saying Goodbye To These Kids That I Always Expected To Have But Already Knew That I Wouldn't.

Nobody Wants To Do It - Not Real Change, Not Soul Change, Not The Painful Molecular Change Required To Truly Become Who You Need To Be. Nobody Ever Does Real Transformation For Fun. Nobody Ever Does It On A Dare. You Do It Only When Your Back Is So Far Against The Wall That You Have No Choice Anymore.

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..."

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.

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

No Experience In This World Has Ever Been Cathartic Without The Willing Participation Of The Individual. Life Does Not Automatically Bestow Wisdom Or Growth Upon Anyone Just For Showing Up.

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

You Have To Get Hurt. That's How You Learn. The Strongest People Out There, The Ones Who Laugh The Hardest With A Genuine Smile, Those Are The People Who Have Fought The Toughest Battles. Because They've Decided That They're Not Going To Let Anything Hold Them Down, They're Showing The World Who's Boss. One Must Always Be Prepared For Riotous And Endless Waves Of Transformation.

Eventually, Everything Goes Away.

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