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ideas are alive, that ideas do seek the most available human collaborator, that ideas do have a conscious will, that ideas do move from soul to soul, that ideas will always try to seek the swiftest and most efficient conduit to the earth (just as lightning does).
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a197348
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You don't like it?" asked Luca, who loves this stuff. "I bet Gandhi never ate lamb intestines in his life," I said. "He could have." "No, he couldn't have, Luca. Gandhi was a vegetarian." "But vegetarians CAN eat this," Luca insisted. "Because intestines aren't even meat, Liz. They're just shit."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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It ain't what they call you; it's what you answer to.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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When women are gathered together with no men around, they don't have to be anything in particular; they can just be
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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If you're a coward--and let's just say that you are, for the sake of argument--it means nothing. My Aunt Peg, she's an alcoholic. She can't handle drinking. It ruins her life and turns her into a mess--and do you know what that means? It means nothing. Do you think it makes her a bad person? Of course not--it's just the way she is. Alcoholism just happened to her, Frank. Things happen to people. We are the way we are--there's nothing to be ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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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.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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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.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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In all of our lives, there are days that we wish we could see expunged from the record of our very existence.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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She knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. This was a simple fact.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The other day a monk told me, 'The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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This sadness is one of the great trials of the human experiment. As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift - or curse, perhaps - of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we're just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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4dec5b0
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You must learn how to become a deeply disciplined half-ass.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The beauty and variety of the natural world are merely the visible legacies of endless war.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Once Henry had heard a crying noise at sea, and had seen a mermaid floating on the ocean's surface. The mermaid had been injured by a shark. Henry had pulled the mermaid out of the water with a rope, and she had died in his arms..."what language did the mermaid speak?" Alma wanted to know, imagining that it like almost have to be Greek. "English!" Henry said. "By God, plum, why would I rescue a deuced foreign mermaid?"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The whole sphere of air that surrounds us, Alma, is alive with invisible attractions -- electric, magnetic, fiery and thoughtful. There is a universal sympathy all around us... When we cease all argument and debate -- both internal and external -- our true questions can be heard and answered...That is the gathering of magic.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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060a7a6
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mn lshl `lyn 'n nd`w wnHnu fy lshd@ , wlkn lstmrr fy ld` b`d mrwr l'zm@ hw 'shbh bDmn ys`d lrwH `l~ ltmsk bnjzth ljyd@ .
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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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!
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.
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happiness
life
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ff6e09f
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nh mn l'fDl 'n t`ysh qdrk nqSan mn 'n t`ysh tqlydan lHy@ ry'`@ lshkhS akhr
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novel
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Felipe and I, as we discover to our delight, are a perfectly matched, genetically engineered belly-to-belly success story.
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relates-to-me
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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One thing was certain: Human Time was the saddest, maddest, most devastating variety of time that had ever existed. She tried her best to ignore it.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress.
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love
elizabeth-gilbert
pray
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I felt a glimmer of happiness when I started studying Italian, 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 (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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What life is, we know not. What life does, we know well. --LORD PERCEVAL
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I was perfectly happy in my boring life before you came along.
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love-story
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Dolce far niente: the pleasure of doing anything
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foreign-language
italian
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The field of honor is a painful field...(It) is not a place where children can play. Children don't have any honor, you see, and they aren't expected to, because it's too difficult for them. It's too painful. But to become an adult, one must step into the field of honor. Everything will be expected of you now. You will need to be vigilant in your principles. Sacrifices will be demanded. You will be judged. If you make mistakes, you must acc..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying","We understand how it is - we have one, too."
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politics
humor
george-bush
italy
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. Because if even one broken and limited human being could experience even one such episode of absolute forgiveness and acceptance of her own self, then imagine--just imagine!--what God, in all His eternal compassion, can forgive and accept.
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people
compassion
god
love
forgiveness
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The Buddha taught that all human suffering is rooted in desire. Don't we all know this to be true? Any of us who have ever desired something and then didn't get it (or, worse, got it and subsequently lost it) know full well the suffering of which the Buddah spoke. 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 yo..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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He endeared himself to me forever the first night we met, when I was getting frustrated with my inability to find the words I wanted in Italian, and he put his hand on my arm and said, "Liz, you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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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.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2e4d4e0
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The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust--and those elements are universally accessible. Which does not mean that creative living is always easy; it merely means that creative living is always possible.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Creativity is a path for the brave, yes, but it is not a path for the fearless, and it's important to recognize the distinction. Bravery means doing something scary. Fearlessness means not even understanding what the word scary means. If your goal in life is to become fearless, then I believe you're already on the wrong path, because the only truly fearless people I've ever met were straight-up sociopaths and a few exceptionally reckless th..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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But inspiration is still sitting there right beside me, and it is trying. Inspiration is trying to send me messages in every form it can--through dreams, through portents, through clues, through coincidences, through deja vu, through kismet, through surprising waves of attraction and reaction, through the chills that run up my arms, through the hair that stands up on the back of my neck, through the pleasure of something new and surprising,..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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in stillness, I watched myselfget eaten by mosquitoes... the itch was maddening at first but eventually it just melded into a general burning feeling and i rode that heat to a mld euphoria. I allowed the pain to lose its specific associations and become pure sensation... and that eventually lifted me out of myself and into meditation.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Whatever you do, try not to dwell too long on your failures. You don't need to conduct autopsies on your disasters.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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We are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, begging for pennies from every passerby, unaware that his fortune was right under him the whole time. Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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He was playing a character I had invented, which is somewhat telling. In desperate love, it's always like this, isn't it? In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Pure creativity is magnificent expressly because it is the opposite of everything else in life that's essential or inescapable (food, shelter, medicine, rule of law, social order, community and familial responsibility, sickness, loss, death, taxes, etc.). Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it's a gift. It's the frosting. Our creativity is a wild and unexpected bonus from the universe.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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73c0782
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I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
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faith
god
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9e2f88c
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Fear is always triggered by creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is, however, something to be dealt with.
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fear
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I think it's a mighty act of human love to remind somebody that they can accomplish things by themselves, and that the world does not automatically owe them any reward, and that they are not as weak and hobbled as they may believe.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |