Elizabeth Gilbert quote: "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 only be about duty?"

The continent did not appeal: France was filled with irritating people; Spain was corrupt and unstab...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. T...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustai...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy o...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border o...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and w...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Instructions for freedom":
1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions.
2. You have just cl...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is be...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I was doing something I'd never done before. And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot ye...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Fear--who cares?
ELIZABETH GILBERT

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate i...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

It's still two human beings trying to get along, so it's going to be complicated. And love is always...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than stayin...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitti...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the s...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions t...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you wan...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual ex...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

It all goes away. Eventually, everything goes away.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than stayin...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need o...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I think I deserve something beautiful.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny i...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a m...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, an...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay wit...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.Ours is an entertainment seeking-nation, bu...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdictio...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I love my friends and family, but I also love it when they can't find me and I can spend all day...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I am far more of a loner than people would imagine. But I am the most gregarious and socially intera...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When I lost my friends, it was because I had used the power of giving on them recklessly. I swept in...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Pe...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. L...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

If life gives you lemons, don't settle for simply making lemonade - make a glorious scene at a l...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

And we have a little herb garden, which survived the winter thanks to global warming. It makes me fe...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument a...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In the modern industrialized Western world, where I come from, the person whom you choose to marry i...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in lov...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Every intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I do forget sometimes how much it means for certain men—for certain people—to be able to provide...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My restlessness makes me a far better day-to-day traveler than he will ever be. I am infinitely curi...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Because I know something that you don't know. I know that this is the worst experience of your life,...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to ha...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Then again, you cannot stop the flood of desire as it moves through the world, inappropriate though ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

For if there is one thing I have learned over the years about men, it is that feelings of powerlessn...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happi...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

By unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can al...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

With each reunion (we) had to learn each other all over again. There was always that nervous moment ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relatio...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There is no choice more intensely personal, after all, than whom you choose to marry; that choice te...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistuing...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I'd learned enough from life's experiences to understand that destiny's interventions can sometimes ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it's more like love's shady second cousin who's alw...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment." (Quoting an old adage)
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you don...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where shall they live?
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids afte...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on thei...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship - a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy g...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Creativity is a crushing chore and a glorious mystery. The work wants to be made, and it wants to be...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I also get that we women in particular must work very hard to keep our fantasies as clearly and clea...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There was no better path to autonomy for an ambitious young businesswoman than to be married off to ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I was struck - not for the first time in my years of travel - by how isolating contemporary American...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Now that young girls like my twelve-year-old friend Mai are being exposed to modern Western women li...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

All too often, those of us who choose to remain childless are accused of being somehow unwomanly or ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The Buddha taught that most problems - if only you give them enough time and space - will eventually...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

ceremony is essential to humans: It's a circle that we draw around important events to separate the ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Psychologists suggest that we must reach back at least three generations to look for clues whenever ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, w...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You have no idea how strong my love is!
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away...meditate and teach your he...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The child is taught form earliest consciousness that she has these four brothers with her in the wor...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Dessutom kunde jag inte glömma vad min syster en gång hade sagt till mig medan hon ammade: ''Att s...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Why are you studying Italian? So that - just in case Italy ever invades Ethiopia again, and is actua...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I filled the song with everything I wished I could teach him about life. I tried to reassure him wit...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Go back to bed so that, when the tempest comes, you'll be strong enough to deal with it. And the tem...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I am so consumed by wonder at their bravery. These people have left their families and lives behind ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

من السهل علينا أن ندعو ونحن في الشدة ولكن الاستمرار في �...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The Yogic path is about disentangling the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I'm going ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of thei...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Dolce far niente: the pleasure of doing anything
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the monkey mind. The thoughts that swing from limb to lim...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of he...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Destiny, I feel is also a relationship-a play between grace and willful self-effort. Half of it you ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I look at the Augusteum,and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing i...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega--a fellow you hir...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome - people did not happen to believe that creativity came from hu...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardia...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You know, why at the end of your life should you assemble thousands of pages of 'Why am I so sad...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Here's the thing: the unit of reverence in Europe is the family, which is why a child born today...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer th...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Oh, I just want what we all want: a comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, an...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—re...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My writing practice taught me the important thing is steadfastness. It's not necessarily discipl...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to Go...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Absolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I am a better person when I have less on my plate.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate i...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I think it's wonderful when a love story begins with a great deal of romance and affection, pass...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I consider a good dinner party at our house to be where people drink and eat more than they're m...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

But he [Depression] just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

They flank me - depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don't need to show their badges....
ELIZABETH GILBERT

We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For th...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Parla come magni,' It means, 'Speak the way you eat,' or in my personal translation: 'Say it like yo...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Listen - of course money changes everything, but so does sunlight, and so does food: These are power...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My husband is not American. He was born in Brazil, where he grew up under a filthy, corrupt dictator...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I used to say, 'Man, I think I'd be a really good dad. I'll be a great provider. I'm...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expec...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Which is - you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I sti...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of o...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

That is who Barack Obama is - a person of admirable character - and that is who he has remained for ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the ves...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, act...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Ketut, why is life all crazy like this?" I asked my medicine man the next day...So what can we do ab...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with peopl...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Man, they got mosquitoes 'round this place big enough to rape a chicken.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I have my own set of survival techniques. I am patient. I know how to pack light. But my one might t...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

God dwells within you, as you.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Dear me, how I love a library.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith" - because the decision to consent to any notion of div...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advanc...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I think sometimes we look at other people's marriages and we think they must always be so happy ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic e...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

يعتقد المرء أن توأم الروح هو الشخص الأنسب له ، وهذا ماي�...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrat...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whisk...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Nothing in the last few years has dazzled me more than Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall,' whic...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and o...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimac...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Part of the elasticity that you need, in order to continue to try to create, is the foregone conclus...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standin...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things th...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this p...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

You have the opposite of poker face. You have like.. miniature golf face.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that’s not fair to say. To have issues with bo...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

He lived in sight of both worlds, but he looked toward the unknown. And he was a scholar.... You can...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, w...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

One year, Alma bought Prudence- who liked to draw flowers (beautifully, though not 'accurately')- a ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have...undressed in front of a gentleman has he ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely express...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

What worked yesterday doesn't always work today.
ELIZABETH GILBERT

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe r...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back people in this world who sustain ou...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Alma had grown as tall as a man by now, with broad shoulders. ... This need not have necessarily pre...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

Pardon me, sir," Prudence said, directing her words and her placid gaze precisely at Professor Peck,...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

There’s this human capacity for joy and endurance, even when things are at their worst. A joy that...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

When it comes to developing a worldview, we tend to face this false division: Either you are a reali...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weath...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productiv...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

This food won't be wasted; after the offering ceremony, Balinese families are always allowed to eat ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed... infinite? That even the most holy...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I got to tell you, I think (deifying artists) was a huge error. You know, I think that allowing some...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as t...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT

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 only be about duty?

Copied!

Elizabeth Gilbert

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 only be about duty?

Elizabeth Gilbert

Share:

Related

More Elizabeth Gilbert