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af97bf7
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Those who are ill-prepared to endure the battle for survival should perhaps never have attempted living in the first place.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c0a02cf
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But vegetarians can eat this...Because intestines aren't even meat, Liz. They're just shit.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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282770c
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We must all get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something
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love
risk
romance
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ba1fb81
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art is absolutely meaningless. It is, however, also deeply meaningful.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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971bb08
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when you set out in the world to help yourself,sometimes you end up helping Tutti.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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adcf39e
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We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we'll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6b006e6
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I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8f8a391
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Learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job o fa creative person...Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process.
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writing
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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51e7e75
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mn lGryb wlSHyH 'yDan 'n lnf`lt lHd@ tj`ln nstjyb l~ l'khbr lmzlzl@ b`ks mymlyh lmnTq. hy lqym@ lmTlq@ ll`wTf lbshry@ ftsjl l'Hdth ls`yd@ 'Hynan `l~ mqys rykhtr `l~ 'nh Sdm@ khlS@, fym tdf`n lHzn lmrw`@ 'Hynan l~ lnfjr blDHk.
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inspirational
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c6464c5
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jmyl@ l~ Hd 'nh ymkn t`lyqh `l~ Snr@ w st`mlh kT`m lSTyd rjl mn jmy` ljnsyt w l'`mr
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8d55166
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kthyr@ hy l'mwr lty bqyt mstyqZ@ l'jlh Twl llyl khll Hyty:lHb , ljdl,lqyd@ , lrqS , lbk , lqlq (w'Hynan kl hdhh l'shy fy lyl@in wHd@ ) wlknny lm 'DHi 'bdan blnwm l'jli lsjwd wHsb , flima l 'f`l lan ??
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9bae625
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ceremony is essential to humans: It's a circle that we draw around important events to separate the momentous from the ordinary. And ritual is a sort of magical safety harness that guides us from one stage of our lives into the next, making sure we don't stumble or lose ourselves along the way. Ceremony and ritual march us carefully right through the center of our deepest fears about change...
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memoir
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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4f3a93f
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When we are young, Angela, we may fall victim to the misconception that time will heal all wounds and that eventually everything will shake itself out. But as we get older, we learn this sad truth: some things can never be fixed. Some mistakes can never be put right - not by the passage of time, and not by our most fervent wishes, either. In my experience, this is the hardest lesson of them all.
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time-will-heal
wounds
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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71fc3a2
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qd 'SbHt 'fkry 'shbh bjyrn qdm~,mz`jyn w lknhm 'SbHw `zyzyn , fthm@ mts` ln jmy` an fy hdh ljwr
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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55b1c7d
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I also know that I won't go forth and have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life; I don't think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto the earth. Though I suppose people do reproduce sometimes for that reason - for insurance against later regret. I think people have children for all manner of reasons- sometimes out of pure desire to nurture and witness life, sometimes out of an absence of choice..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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07e0ff0
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'nti mr'@ qwy@ m`td@ `l~ lHSwl `l~ m trydynh mn lHy@ wlm tHSly `l~ m 'rdti fy `lqtk l'khyr@, whdh m ythyr jnwnk. lm ytSrf zwjk km 'rdti, wkdhlk l'mr blnsb@ l~ dyfyd. `kstk lHy@ lftr@ mn lzmn, wm mn shy' ythyr GDb mHbWy lsyTr@ 'kthr mn 'n t`kshm l'qdr
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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08724a4
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And naturally I was reading in the library a few days later from a book about the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, and I stumbled upon a story about a seeker who once came to see the great master and admitted to him that she feared she was not a good enough devotee, feared that she did not love God enough. And the saint said, "Is there nothing you love?" The woman admitted that she adored her young nephew more than anything else on earth. The ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fd7cace
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To devote yourself to the creation and enjoyment of beauty, then, can be a serious business--not always necessarily a means of escaping reality, but sometimes a means of holding on to the real when everything is flaking away into... rhetoric and plot.
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beauty
inspirational
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cbb8de3
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i honor the divinity that resides within me.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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We can change our wives," he said. "We can change our jobs, our nationalities and even our religions, but we can never change our team."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b6d5547
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So Sofie and I have come to Pizzeria da Michele, and these pies we have just ordered -- one for each of us -- are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delerium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she's having a metaphysical crisis about it, she's begging me, "..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b5f607f
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You learn to smile even in you liver?' 'Even in my lire, Ketut. Big smile in my liver.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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51ff8d9
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When a situation is making you truly miserable, it's difficult to say that you are "merely" unhappy. There seems to be nothing "mere" for instance, about crying for months on end, or feeling that you are being buried alive within your own home."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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35a548d
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If faith were rational, it wouldn't be - by definition - faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. 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 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.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9e5b931
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I can only be in charge of producing the work itself. That's a hard enough job. I refuse to take on additional jobs, such as trying to police what anybody thinks about my work once it leaves my desk.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8e296e6
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When you are walking down the road in Bali and your pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, "Where are you going?" The second question is, "Where are you coming from?" To a Westerner, this can seem like a rather invasive inquiry from a perfect stranger, but they're just trying to get an orientation on you, trying to insert you into the grid for the purposes of security and comfort. If you tell them that you don't..
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purpose
travel
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cd1c1ec
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What is it about the American obsession with productivity and responsibility that makes it so difficult for us to allow ourselves a little time to solve the puzzle of our own lives, before it's too late?
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selfishness
travel
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f2cf426
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I lose count of how many bottles of Sardinian wine we drink before Deborah introduces to the table the suggestion that we follow a nice American custom here tonight by joining hands-and each in turn-saying what we are most grateful for. In three languages, then, this montage of gratitude comes forth, one testimony at a time.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1144474
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And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. I choose to block out all the external (and internal) noise and distractions, and to come home again and again to creativity. Because without that source of wonder, I know that I am doomed. Without it, I will forever wander the world in a state of bottomless dissatisfaction--nothing but a howling ghost, trapped in a body made of slowly deteriorating m..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e8ea2f6
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Who the hell do you think you are?" your darkest interior voices will demand. "It's funny you should ask," you can reply. "I'll tell you who I am: I am a child of God, just like anyone else. I am a constituent of this universe. I have invisible spirit benefactors who believe in me, and who labor"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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db51726
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This is why we have to be careful of how we handle our fear--because I've noticed that when people try to kill off their fear, they often end up inadvertently murdering their creativity in the process.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a1ed248
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Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?
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elizabeth-gilbert
life-philosophy
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1faf9ec
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The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong tom or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough- but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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abe1740
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For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that perhaps I was asking too much of love. Or, at least, perhaps I was asking too much of marriage. Perhaps I was loading a far heavier cargo of expectation onto the creaky old boat of matrimony than that strange vessel had ever been built to accommodate in the first place.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3a2d1cc
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Speak to your darkest and most negative interior voices the way a hostage negotiator speaks to a violent psychopath: calmly, but firmly. Most of all, never back down. You cannot afford to back down. The life you are negotiating to save, after all, is your own.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9305538
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This is likely because you're so consumed by your own dramas, anxieties, distractions, insecurities, and duties that you aren't receptive to inspiration.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6634bb7
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But why must everything always 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 be only about duty?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ea5e0b9
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Keep cultivating gratitude.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8442d64
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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 in all that would not be a leap of faith and it would not a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy. I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I am tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a45dd51
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If you tell me slowly, I can understand quickly
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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da3dec8
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I am so consumed by wonder at their bravery. These people have left their families and lives behind for a few weeks to go into silent retreat amidst a crowd of perfect strangers in India. Not everybody does this in their lifetime.
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elizabeth-gilbert
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e43202a
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Most of all, there is this truth: No matter how great your teachers may be, and no matter how esteemed your academy's reputation, eventually you will have to do the work by yourself. Eventually, the teachers won't be there anymore. The walls of the school will fall away, and you'll be on your own. The hours that you will then put into practice, study, auditions, and creation will be entirely up to you.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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315ea40
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But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed... infinite? That even the most holy amongst us would only be able to see scattered pictures of the eternal picture at any given time? And that maybe if we could collect those pieces and compare them, a story about God would begin to emerge that resembles and includes everyone?
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religion
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f835035
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And what if people absolutely hate what you've created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and insult your intelligence, and malign your motives, and drag your good name through the mud? Just smile sweetly and suggest--as politely as you possibly can--that they go make their own fucking art.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |