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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."

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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The Story He [todd

Elizabeth Gilbert

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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."

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Who Amongst Us Lives Without Sacrifice?

Without Sacrifice

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.

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

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.

God Is An Experience Of Supreme Love.

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

The Only Boring People I Know Are Bored People.

There Is A Reason They Call God A Presence - Because God Is Right Here, Right Now. In The Present Is The Only Place To Find Him, And Now Is The Only Time.

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Best Eat Pray Love

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Felipe And I, As We Discover To Our Delight, Are A Perfectly Matched, Genetically Engineered Belly-to-belly Success Story.

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

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

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

Love Of My Life

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.

Men Go Into Marriage With Virtually No Expectations Whatsoever. Ten Years Later, The Men Are Delightfully Surprised To Find Out That It's Actually Kind Of Nice, And The Women Have Sort Of Had To Take A Nose Dive From What They Thought It Was Going To Be.

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

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..."

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

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

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

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

Acquiring Things

Your Tears Are My Prayers.

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.

We're Miserable Because We Think That We Are Mere Individuals, Alone With Our Fears And Flaws And Resentment And Mortality.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance

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

If Faith Were Rational , It Wouldn't Be -by Definition- Faith.

Eat Pray And Love

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

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

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.

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

I Think It's Unfortunate That There Exists Only One Path In America To Complete Social Legitimacy, And That Is Marriage. I Think, For Instance, That It Would Be Far Easier For Americans To Elect A Black President Or A Female President Than An Unmarried President.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

Guilt's Just Your Ego's Way Of Tricking You Into Thinking That You're Making Moral Progress. Don't Fall For It, My Dear.

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

I Think When You Are An Aspiring Writer, You Must Write Every Day. It's Not As Though Anybody Will Call You Up On The Phone And Say, "i Understand You Are A Very Promising, Aspiring Writer And I'm Going To Give You This Assignment." You Have To Create It Yourself Or It's Never Going To Happen.

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

The Nineteenth Century Was The Last Moment In History When A Relatively Educated Layperson Could Follow What Was Going On In The World Of Science And Invention To A Wide Degree. Also, There Were No "professionals". This Was A Time When Amateur Explorers, Naturalists And Enthusiasts Were Are Still Making Major Contributions To Progress.

We All Have Love Stories That Go Terribly Wrong; We All Have Horribly Broken Hearts. And Somehow We Endure. We're Not Destroyed By It. We Endure And Go On To Do Interesting Things And Have Worthy Lives, Even Though We Carry Our Heartbreaks With Us. That's A Kind Of Personal Story Of Mine That I Don't Think I Would Tell In Memoir But I Do Think I Can Tell In Fiction.

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

I Crossed The Street To Walk In The Sunshine.

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

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.

Marriage Is Not A Game For The Young.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Appreciation Of Pleasure Can Be The Anchor Of Humanity.

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 Am Not An Expert At Praying, As You Know. But Can You Please Help Me? I Am In Desperate Need Of Help. I Don't Know What To Do. I Need An Answer. Please Tell Me What To Do.

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 Tried This Morning, After An Hour Or So Of Unhappy Thinking, To Dip Back Into My Meditation, I Took A New Idea With Me: Compassion. I Asked My Heart If It Could Please Infuse My Soul With A More Generous Perspective On My Mind's Workings. Instead Of Thinking That I Was A Failure, Could I Perhaps Accept That I Am Only A Human Being--and A Normal One, At That?

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.

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.

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

There's Nothing Special About Your Fear.

A Creative Life Is An Amplified Life. It's A Bigger Life, A Happier Life, An Expanded Life, And A Hell Of A Lot More Interesting Life. Living In This Manner-continually And Stubbornly Bringing Forth The Jewels That Are Hidden Within You-is A Fine Art, In And Of Itself.

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

One Of These Poems I Wrote After Having Been Here Only A Month. The Other, I Wrote This Morning. In The Space Between The Two Poems, I Have Found Acres Of Grace

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.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Dear Me, How I Love A Library.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

What Kind Of Dog Is That?" I Would Always Give The Same Answer: "she's A Brown Dog." Similarly, When The Question Is Raised, "what Kind Of God Do You Believe In?" My Answer Is Easy: "i Believe In A Magnificent God.

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.

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.

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.

Go Back To Bed', Said The Omniscient Interior Voice, Because You Don't Need To Know The Final Answer Right Now, At Three O'clock In The Morning On The Thursday In November. 'go Back To Bed', Because I Love You. 'go Back To Bed', Beacause 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.

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

Falling In Love

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

To My Taste, The Men In Rome Are Ridiculously, Hurtfully, Stupidly Beautiful. More Beautiful Even Than Roman Women, To Be Honest. Italian Men Are Beautiful In The Same Way As French Women, Which Is To Say-- No Detail Spared In The Quest For Perfection. They’re Like Show Poodles. Sometimes They Look So Good I Want To Applaud.

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.

My Face Is A Transparent Transmitter Of My Every Thought.

The World Is Like A Dropped Pie Most Of The Time. Don't Kill Yourself Trying To Put It Back Together. Just Grab A Fork And Eat Some Of It Off The Floor. Then Carry On.

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience Of God.

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.

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.

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

Take Me Someplace Where We Can Be Silent Together.

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

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

Who Will Ever Kiss This Encyclopedia Of A Head?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Am Burdened With What The Buddhists Call The Monkey Mind. The Thoughts That Swing From Limb To Limb, Stopping Only To Scratch Themselves, Spit And Howl. My Mind Swings Wildly Through Time, Touching On Dozens Of Ideas A Minute, Unharnessed And Undisciplined. You Are, After All, What You Think. Your Emotions Are The Slaves To Your Thoughts, And You Are The Slave To Your Emotions.

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

Bali Eat Pray Love

Both The Five-year-olds Looked At Me With Bewilderment And A Bit Of Fearful Uncertainty. I Had A Sudden Horrifying Image Of The Woman I Might Become If I'm Not Careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The Divorcee In The Muumuu With The Dyed Orange Hair Who Doesn't Eat Dairy But Smokes Menthols, Who's Always Just Coming Back From Her Astrology Cruise Or Breaking Up With Her Aroma-therapist Boyfriend, Who Reads The Tarot Cards Of Kindergarteners And Says Things Like, "bring Aunty Liz Another Wine Cooler, Baby, And I'll Let You Wear My Mood Ring.

Take Care Of The Problems Now, Or Else You'll Just Have To Suffer Again Later When You Scew Everything Up The Next Time. And That Repetition Of Suffering - That's Hell. Moving Out Of That Endless Repetition To A New Level Of Understand - There's Where You'll Find Heaven.

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

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.

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.

I Want To Learn How To Speak Italian. For Years, I'd Wished I Could Speak Italian--a Language I Find More Beautiful Than Roses :)

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

We Invented Marriage. Couples Invented Marriage. We Also Invented Divorce,mind You. And We Invented Infidelity,too, As Well As Romantic Misery. In Fact We Invented The Whole Sloppy Mess Of Love And Intimacy And Aversion And Euphoria And Failure. But Most Importantly Of All, Most Subversively Of All, Most Stubbornly Of All, We Invented Privacy.

Offer It Up Personally,then. Right Now. I Thought Of How Many People Go To Their Graves Unforgiven And Unforgiving. I Thought Of How Many People Have Had Siblings Or Friends Or Children Or Lovers Disappear From Their Lives Before Precious Words Of Clemency Or Absolution Could Be Passed Along. How Do The Survivors Of Terminated Relationships Ever Endure The Pain Of Unfinished Business? From That Place Of Meditation, I Found The Answer-you Can Finish The Business Yourself, From Within Yourself. It's Not Only Possible, It's Essential.

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.

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!

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

Meditation Vs Prayer = Listening Vs Talking

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

Our Relationship

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

And When You Sense A Faint Potentiality For Happiness After Such Dark Times You Must Grab Onto The Ankles Of That Happiness And Not Let Go Until It Drags You Face-first Out Of The Dirt - This Is Not Selfishness, But Obligation. You Were Given Life; It Is Your Duty To Find Something Beautiful Within Life No Matter How Slight.

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.

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.

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).

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

Women Come Into Marriage With Great Inflated Expectations For What They Want This Relationship To Be, And Men Don't Give It That Much Thought. Men Come Into It With Reluctance About Being Capsized Or Trapped Or Whatever Their Fear Is. When You Check In Later, Women Are Disappointed Because Their Expectations Have Not Come To Pass, And Men Are Pleasantly Surprised.

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

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.

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.

Nothing Is So Essential As Dignity…time Will Reveal Who Has It And Who Has It Not.

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)

Having A Baby Is Like Getting A Tattoo On Your Face. You Really Need To Be Certain It's What You Want Before You Commit.

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.

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

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."

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

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

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.

Nothing In The Last Few Years Has Dazzled Me More Than Hilary Mantel's 'wolf Hall,' Which Blew The Top Of My Head Straight Off. I've Read It Three Times, And I'm Still Trying To Figure Out How She Put That Magnificent Thing Together.

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.

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

What Are You Willing To Give Up, In Order To Become Who You Really Need To Be?

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

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.

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

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.

Embrace The Glorious Mess That You Are

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Life's Metaphors Are God's Instructions.

There Is No Choice More Intensely Personal, After All, Than Whom You Choose To Marry; That Choice Tells Us, To A Large Extent, Who You Are.

I 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.

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

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