elizabeth-gilbert Quotes About ifs

“I'm not particularly inventive. If you left me in а room and told me to write a novel, I wouldn't be able to do it. But if you gave me two years in a public library around the corner, I could. It all comes from sort of mixing the true and the invented. I'm not a fabulist. I'm more of a reporter.”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“If I could read while I was driving, showering, socializing or sleeping, I would do it.”

Ifs Sleep Driving If I Could Socializing

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“Now, if you are like me - if you are like practically anybody in America - then you probably hold some negative opinions about the French, based upon movies, rumors, recent headlines, unfortunate run-ins with Parisian waiters, or... you know... all that unpleasantness surrounding the Vichy regime.”

Ifs Knows Running America Opinion Negative Like Me Regimes Unfortunate Rumor Headlines Waiter

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person.”

Ifs Thinking Persons Would Be Compassion Wounded Betrayed

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“You can butcher the sheep only once. But if you are careful, you can shear the sheep every year.”

Ifs Years Patience Careful Sheep Butchers

Book:The Signature of All Things

Source: The Signature of All Things

“I feel like all this stuff that we make: books and art and music, all of it. There's this energy that circles the world that wants to be made manifest, and it is just looking for someone to come through. And it's dying for you to make it. And if you don't do it, it will go find somebody else.”

Ifs World Want Feels Art Made Book Energy Stuff Dying Circles Manifest Art And Music

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I believe that - if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression - that you should take on this work like a holy calling.”

Ifs Should Writing Believe Form I Believe Creative Serious Expression Holy Calling

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I think that if you can roast a chicken, you can get whatever you want out of a woman.”

Ifs Thinking Want Chickens

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I think that if you can roast a chicken, you can get whatever you want out of a woman. 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."... 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.”

Ifs Thinking Men Want Trying Would Be Form Cooks Meals Chickens Suspects Impress Steak Grilling Weekdays Roast Chicken

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then 'Ole!' And if not, do your dance anyhow. And 'Ole!' to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. 'Ole!' to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.”

Ifs Feels Believe Humans Moments Shows Might Jobs I Believe Effort Teach Cases Pieces Divine Genius Just One Sheer Stubbornness Showing Up Human Love

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“If you want to know the world, sometimes you have to get out and roll around.”

Ifs Knows World Want Sometimes

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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.”

Ifs Want Trying Sex Couple Forgiving Hungry Cooks Cowboy Trails

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“Never go into debt to become a writer. Always find other ways to support yourself so you can do the work you truly love for the right reasons. Never ask your art to support you. If you ask your art to support you it will either end up comprised or you'll be disappointed with it. It's a lot to ask of creativity for it to provide for you financially. Find a scrappy way to get by and then do the work you love for the reasons you love.”

Ifs Way Art Ends Reason Asks Can Do Creativity Support Debt Disappointed Support You Work You Love

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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.”

Ifs Needs House Force Powerful Attention Eternal Extraordinary Pay Attention Eternal Life Humbling

Book:The Last American Man

Source: The Last American Man

“If you're alive, you're a creative person.”

Ifs Persons Creative Alive Creative Person

Book:Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Someone asked me if I would like to write a man on death row, be a pen pal, and I was like, sure. I volunteered. I had been in a place in my life - a relationship had ended; my parents were getting elderly - I was kind of adrift. The name that was given to me, just randomly, was Todd Willingham. And he wrote me a letter, and in this letter, he thanked me for writing him and [said that] if I would like to visit, he would put me on his visitor list... I was just really struck by the letter from Todd. It was very polite; it was very kind.”

Ifs Men Writing Kind Said Names Given Parent Letters Lists Pens Polite Elderly Visitors Pals Adrift Death Row

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“There was really only one person who - and I remember to this day - he was a fireman, and he said, "You'll never know what you'll do when you're in a fire." Everyone else was like: "I don't care; I would have saved my children; I could have done it. Even if I was asleep I would have woken up and saved my children." But the fireman said, "You never know what's going to happen unless you're in there."”

Ifs Knows Children Persons Said Done Happens Care Remember Fire Don't Care Saved I Don't Care My Children This Day Fireman

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I can see how the authorities could not like Todd [ Willingham], because he's not a person who is going to give you respect if you don't deserve it just because you say something.”

Ifs Giving Persons I Can Authority Deserve

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“Todd's mother had several children by different fathers, and Todd [Willingham] had been abandoned in California. ... He's a good-looking man. He was a witty man, you know? Funny, caring. He wasn't arrogant, but he was kind of set in his ways. If he thought something, it was one way. You could show him an alternative, but he was still going to stick by his particular view. But I could see how to women he could be a very charming, good-looking guy, especially when he was younger.”

“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.”

Ifs Children Self Facts House Guilty Ran Preservation Self Preservation

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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..."”

Ifs Men Littles Kids Used Rooms Cracks Little Kid Stadiums

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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.”

Ifs Knows Needs Stills Body Struggle Healthy Okay Mark Asking Statements Petitions Filing Question Mark

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I feel like if I were to get another tattoo, it would probably be those two words. Just stubborn, stubborn, stubborn gladness.”

Ifs Feels Two Tattoo Stubborn Gladness

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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.”

Ifs Bigs Reader Desert Islands Dislike Austen Eliot

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion.”

People Ifs Men Want Persons Ideas Different Home Religion Praying Argument Agree What You Want Arguing Best Things Good Ideas Different Religions

Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.”

Ifs Knows Way Humans Know How Groups Changed Human Life Life Lesson Variables Pray Love Eat Pray Love Book Eat Pray And Love Best Eat Pray Love Bali Eat Pray Love

Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“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.”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

Ifs Humans Earth Pain Purpose Suffering Found Born Chance Divine Infinite Human Life Bliss Divinity Worthwhile Infinite Love Suffering And Pain

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

“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.”

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“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.”

“This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I’d only ever experienced love and certainty in my life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine?”

Ifs Sound Voice Answers Forever Wise Divine Calm Affection Certainty Warmth Compassionate Seals

Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“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. Better to live a life of single-pointed focus, he taught. But what about the benefits of living harmoniously among extremes? What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?”

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“I have my own set of survival techniques. I am patient. I know how to pack light. But my one might travel talent is that I can make friends with anybody. I can make friends with the dead. If there isn’t anyone else around to talk to, I could probably make friends with a four-foot-tall pile of sheetrock. That is why I’m not afraid to travel to the most remote places in the world, not if there are human beings there to meet. People asked me before I left, “do you have friends [there]?’ and I would just shake my head no, thinking to myself, But I will.”

“I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you... There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

“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.”

Ifs Lying Order Food Please Pizza Naples Lie To Me Mozzarella

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“When Catherine told me about this (tragedy nearby), I could only say, shocked, "Dear God, that family needs grace." She replied firmly, "That family needs casseroles," and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this _is_ grace.”

Ifs Knows Needs Years Night Grace Tragedy Dear Dinner Neighborhood My Sister Organize Shocked Dear God Family Dinner Casseroles

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“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.”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where all is correct. But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion." Nothing follows a regular course. Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will be more perilous.”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

Ifs Way Want Needs Should Trying Mind Happiness Change Mindfulness Clothes Select Pray Love Eat Pray Love Book Eat Pray And Love Best Eat Pray Love Eat Love Pray Bali Eat Pray Love

Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“If I'd had any way of knowing that things were- as Lily Tomlin once said- going to get a whole lot worse before they got worse, I'm not sure how I would have slept that night.”

Ifs Way Said Whole Night Knowing Not Sure Lilies

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

Ifs Long Doe Enough Plant Lovely Uncomfortable Stillness Pray Love Eat Pray Love Book Eat Pray And Love Best Eat Pray Love Bali Eat Pray Love

Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“Richard didn't even have time to ask if I thought I'd ever amount to anything in this life before I looked him eye to eye and said, "I already have, mister.”

Ifs Said Eye Asks Amount This Life

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with think, dark hair, He would have made me that way, but He didn't. Useful, then, might be to accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein.”

Ifs Thinking Way Made Might Wanted Girl Given Dark Accepting Hair Shy Making Peace Dark Hair Shy Girl

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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?”

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

Ifs Men Years Feelings Quality One Thing I Have Learned Finest Powerlessness

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

“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.”

Ifs Want Needs Feels Body Hands Joy Privilege Mortals God Love Palms Pray Love Eat Pray Love Book Eat Pray And Love Best Eat Pray Love Eat Love Pray

Book:The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

Source: The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims

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