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Returning To Writing Fiction After 13 Years Away From It. Returning To The Rootstock Of My Whole Life As A Writer. It's What I Had Wanted To Be For My Entire Life, Since I Can Remember, Since My Particular Time Immemorial. It's How I Got My Start As A Writer.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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Returning To Writing Fiction

Elizabeth Gilbert

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Returning To Writing Fiction After 13 Years Away From It. Returning To The Rootstock Of My Whole Life As A Writer. It's What I Had Wanted To Be For My Entire Life, Since I Can Remember, Since My Particular Time Immemorial. It's How I Got My Start As A Writer.

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So Sadness Is A Place?' Giovanni Asked. 'sometimes People Live There For Years,'i Said.

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

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

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?

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?

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

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.

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.

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'm A Pleaser. That's My Character.

I Decide Every Day That I Love Creativity Enough To Accept That Fear Will Always Come With It. And I Talk To Fear All The Time, Speaking To It With Love And Respect, Saying To It: “i Know That You Are Fear, And That Your Job Is To Be Afraid. And You Do Your Job Really Well! I Will Never Ask You To Leave Me Alone Or To Be Silent, Because You Have A Right To Speak Your Own Voice, And I Know That You Will Never Leave Me Alone Or Be Silent, Anyhow. But I Need You To Understand That I Will Always Choose Creativity Over You.

There's Nothing Special About Your Fear.

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

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).

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 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.

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.

God Never Slams A Door In Your Face Without Opening A Box Of Girl Scout Cookies.

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.

It Seems Obvious That There Comes Period In Your Life When You Have To Learn To Say No To Things You Don't Want To Do. But The Biggest Trickiest Lesson In Holding On The Stalwart Committment To Your Creativity Is Learning How To Say No To The Things You Do Want To Do.

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

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

I Said, "it Seems Like You Have Fond Feelings Toward Your Ex-wife. Are You Two Still Close?" "nah," He Said Casually. "she Thinks I Changed My Name To Motherfucker."

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

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

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

Meditation Vs Prayer = Listening Vs Talking

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.

The Idea That A Prisoner Would Confess To A Complete Stranger That He Had Committed A Crime - I Just Didn't Buy That.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance

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.

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.

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.

The Mosquitoes Here Are Big Enough To Rape A Chicken.

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.

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

Falling In Love

It's So Much Easier And Cheaper To Keep The River Uncontaminated In The First Place Than It Is To Clean It Up Again Once It's Been Polluted.

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

Desire For Success

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.

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

As Somebody Who, In My Second Marriage, Insisted On A Prenuptial Agreement, I Can Also Testify That Sometimes It Is An Act Of Love To Chart The Exit Strategy Before You Enter The Union, In Order To Make Sure That Not Only You, But Your Partner As Well, Knows That There Will Be No World War Iii Should Hearts And Minds, For Any Sad Reason, Change.

True Wisdom Gives The Only Possible Answer At Any Given Moment, And That Night, Going Back To Bed Was The Only Possible Answer.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Problem Is, You Can’t Accept That His Relationship Had A Real Short Shelf Life. You’re Like A Dog At The Dump, Baby – You’re Just Lickin’ At The Empty Tin Can, Trying To Get More Nutrition Out Of It. And If You’re Not Careful, That Can’s Gonna Get Stuck On Your Snout Forever And Make Your Life Miserable. So Drop It.” “but I Love Him.” “so Love Him.” “but I Miss Him.” “so Miss Him. Send Him Some Love And Light Every Time You Think About Him, Then Drop It.

When You Have Only Two Minutes To Say Good-bye To The Person You Love Most In The World, And You Don’t Know When You’ll See Each Other Again, You Can Become Logjammed With The Effort To Say And Do And Settle Everything At Once.

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.

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

Golden Retrievers

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..."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Was Full Of A Hot, Powerful Sadness And Would Have Loved To Burst Into The Comfort Of Tears, But Tried Hard Not To, Remembering Something My Guru Once Said -- That You Should Never Give Yourself A Chance To Fall Apart Because, When You Do, It Becomes A Tendency And It Happens Over And Over Again. You Must Practice Staying Strong, Instead.

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

Nobody's Really Paying That Much Attention To Your Massive Personal Dramas.

Creativity Does Not Belong Exclusively To Professional Artists And Geniuses; It Is The Birthright Of Every Single Human Being. Creativity Is Our Common Heritage. You Don’t Need To Quit Your Job And Move To Paris In Order To Lay Claim To This Heritage - All You Have To Do Is Clear Some Space In Your Life For Whimsy, Invention, Sensory Pleasure, And Play. Most Of All, You Have To Learn How To Follow Your Curiosity More Than Your Fear.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Desperate Love Is Always The Toughest Way To Do It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

A Lovely Evening Of New Idioms And Fresh Mozzarella.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!'

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

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

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.

Returning To Writing Fiction After 13 Years Away From It. Returning To The Rootstock Of My Whole Life As A Writer. It's What I Had Wanted To Be For My Entire Life, Since I Can Remember, Since My Particular Time Immemorial. It's How I Got My Start As A Writer.

Too Many Maniacs Not Enough Michelangelos

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.

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

Learning Something New

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.

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.

I Never Promised The Universe That I Would Write Brilliantly; I Only Promised The Universe That I Would Write.

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

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.

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

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

In Venice In The Middle Ages There Was Once A Profession For A Man Called A Codega--a Fellow You Hired To Walk In Front Of You At Night With A Lit Lantern, Showing You The Way, Scaring Off Thieves And Demons, Bringing You Confidence And Protection Through The Dark Streets.

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.

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

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!

What Time Has Ever Been A Simple Time For Those Who Are Living It?

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.

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.

A Glorious Failure Can Sometimes Be More Life Affirming Than A Cautious Win.

I Think I Deserve Something Beautiful.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

They Flank Me - Depression On My Left, Loneliness On My Right. They Don't Need To Show Their Badges. I Know These Guys Very Well. ... Then They Frisk Me. They Empty My Pockets Of Any Joy I Had Been Carrying There. Depression Even Confiscates My Identity; But He Always Does That.

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.

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 :)

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)

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.

Learning How To Discipline Your Speech Is A Way Of Preventing Your Energies From Spilling Out Of You Through The Rupture Of Your Mouth, Exhausting You And Filling The World With Words, Words, Words Instead Of Serenity, Peace And Bliss.

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

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

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...

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

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

With Each Reunion (we) Had To Learn Each Other All Over Again. There Was Always That Nervous Moment At The Airport When I Would Stand There Waiting For Him To Arrive, Wondering, Will I Still Know Him? Will He Still Know Me?

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

Library Is A Beautiful Old Thing

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Unfenced By Law, The Unmarried Lover Can Quit A Bad Relationship At Any Time. But You - The Legally Married Person Who Wants To Escape Doomed Love - May Soon Discover That A Significant Portion Of Your Marriage Contract Belongs To The State, And That It Sometimes Takes A Very Long While For The State To Grant You Your Leave.

Bad Relationship

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Smile With Face, Smile With Mind, And Good Energy Will Come To You And Clean Away Dirty Energy.

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.

Desiring Another Person Is Perhaps The Most Risky Endeavor Of All. As Soon As You Want Somebody—really Want Him—it Is As Though You Have Taken A Surgical Needle And Sutured Your Happiness To The Skin Of That Person, So That Any Separation Will Now Cause A Lacerating Injury.

I Push Every Day Against Forces That Say You Have To Go Faster, Be More Effective, Be More Productive, You Have To Constantly Outdo Yourself, You Have To Constantly Outdo Your Neighbor - All Of The Stuff That Creates An Incredibly Productive Society, But Also A Very Neurotic One.

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

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.

It Used To Be That God Was Revealed In The Wonders Of Nature; Now God Was Being Challenged By Those Same Wonders. Scholars Were Now Required To Choose One Side Or The Other.

Because I Know Something That You Don't Know. I Know That This Is The Worst Experience Of Your Life, But I Also Know That Someday You'll Move Past It And You'll Be Fine. And Helping Somebody Likej You Through The Worst Experience Of Her Life Is Incredibly Gratifying.

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

Mostly You Meet Friends When Traveling By Accident, Like By Sitting Next To Them On The Train, Or In A Restaurant, Or In A Holding Cell.

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.

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

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.

I Am Burdened With What The Buddhists Call The 'monkey Mind' -- The Thoughts That Swing From Limb To Limb, Stopping Only To Scratch Themselves, Spit And Howl.

You Write Fiction, You're Writing Memoir, And When You're Writing Memoir, You're Writing Fiction.

Writing Fiction

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Great Lack Of Parity Between Husbands And Wives Has Always Been Spawned By The Disproportionate Degree Of Self-sacrifice That Women Are Willing To Make On Behalf Of Those They Love.

Nothing Is Less Efficient Than Perfectionism.

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

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

Being A Woman Did Not Look Enviable To Me, Even When It Looked Admirable. It Looked Like Nonstop Sacrifice And Service. Because It Was. Being A Woman Seemed Vulnerable And Sad. Even The Strong Women I Knew - And They Were All Strong - Had Earned Their Strength Through Enduring Huge Disappointments And Tremendous Struggles.

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.

Imagine That The Universe Is A Great Spinning Engine. You Want To Stay Near The Core Of The Thing - Right In The Hub Of The Wheel - Not Out At The Edges Where All The Wild Whirling Takes Place, Where You Can Get Frayed And Crazy. The Hub Of Calmness - That's Your Heart. That's Where God Lives Within You. So Stop Looking For Answers In The World. Just Keep Coming Back To That Center And You'll Always Find Peace.

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

There Is A Theory That If You Yearn Sincerely Enough For A Guru, You Will Find One. The Universe Will Shift, Destiny's Molecules Will Get Themselves Organized And Your Path Will Soon Intersect With The Path Of The Master You Need.

I Worked At The Original Coyote Ugly Bar When I Was A Young, Unpublished Writer. Then Later When I Became A Writer, I Wrote An Article About It For Gq. Disney Read This Article About This Filthy, Disgusting Pit In The East Village [of New York City], Where We Used To Set The Bar On Fire To Get Customers Away From Us, And Said, "that's A Great Movie For Kids!" They Made The Fantastic Coyote Ugly Movie, Now Legendary.

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.

A Man That Can Cook You A Proper Meal That Is Like A Weekday Meal - Which I Think Cannot Be Better Than In The Form Of A Roast Chicken - That's The Greatest.

Marriage Is Not A Game For The Young.

The Act Of Quiet Nighttime Talking, Illustrates For Me More Than Anything Else The Curious Alchemy Of Companionship.

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

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.

I Actually Have A Great Deal Of Respect For Antidepressants; I Think They Can Be Enormously Mighty Tools Toward Recovery.

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.

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

Pick Yourself Up

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