Quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

“Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?”

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”

“All I could say was, I dont know what to do. I remember her taking me by the shoulders and looking me in the eye with a calm smile and saying simply, Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.”

“Man is a demon, man is a god. Both true.”

“I was a veritable Johnny Appleseed of grand expectations, and all I reaped for my trouble was a harvest of bitter fruit.”

“Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all.”

“People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if youre fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly.”

“I keep remembering one of my Gurus teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if youre fortunate enough. But thats not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you dont you will eat away your innate contentment. Its easy enough to pray when youre 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 attainments.”

“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.”

“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.”

“Your problem is you dont understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and thats what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything thats holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person youll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.”

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”

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

“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...”

“Ive come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call The Physics of The Quest — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your 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 truth will not be withheld from you. Or so Ive come to believe.”

“The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.”

“Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.”

“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 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.”

“I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Whos in charge?”