Quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most poeple who live there. If you could read peoples thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be - that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you dont really belong there.

Religious ceremonies are of paramount importance in Bali ( an island, dont forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it-you would pray, too).

... the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.

Creativity itself doesnt 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.

And we have a little herb garden, which survived the winter thanks to global warming. It makes me feel like a cool, old Italian housewife, that I kept my rosemary alive outside all winter.

I know Im not a self-indulgent idiot; I also know Im not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, thats when the mental illness arrives.

I love my friends and family, but I also love it when they cant 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.

Its 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 didnt have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didnt have much to do with reality.

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.

Heres 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.

There were times, especially when I was traveling for Eat, Pray, Love, when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.

I think its wonderful when a love story begins with a great deal of romance and affection, passion and excitement, thats how it should be. But I dont necessarily know that its the wisest thing in the world to expect that it ends there, or that it should, 30 years down the road, still look as it did on the night of your first kiss.

I think its 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.

I dont hate humanity and Im not interested in people who do. Although, its 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 its indefensible! But hes so funny... I forgive him everything.

You know, why at the end of your life should you assemble thousands of pages of Why am I so sad, why am I so depressed? Instead, assemble thousands of pages of why youre so content.

I dont 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.

Marriage is not simply a romantic union between two people its also a political and economic contract of the highest order.

My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.

I think a lot of people who feel as though they desperately want to be married oftentimes simply desperately want to have a wedding.

I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be the happiest moment of ones life.