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d9526b3 Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water. Elizabeth Gilbert
f99b054 For some reason, I feel the same way about you that I felt about my kids when they were small - that it wasn't their job to love me, it was my job to love them. You can decide to feel however you want to, but I love you and I will always love you. Elizabeth Gilbert
87f5dc7 Creative living is a path for the brave. Elizabeth Gilbert
c9990c0 People convince themselves that they have been robbed when they have not, in fact, been robbed. Such thinking comes from a wretched allegiance to the notion of scarcity - from the belief that the world is a place of dearth, and that there will never be enough of anything to go around. Elizabeth Gilbert
5e06d71 there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home. That is the understanding we need to put our lives in some bigger metaphysical context. Instead, Eustace sees a chilling sight- a citizenry so removed from the rhythm of nature that we march through our lives as mere sleepwalkers, blinded, deafened, and senseless. Robotically existing in sterilized surroundings that numb the mind, we.. Elizabeth Gilbert
ebb74b5 This food won't be wasted; after the offering ceremony, Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God - the gesture - while man takes what belongs to man - the food itself. metaphysical offering Elizabeth Gilbert
603cb56 I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true en.. Elizabeth Gilbert
8b69f4f you clear out all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, an open spot--a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in--God will rush in--and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go. Elizabeth Gilbert
0a1dcd8 ago that if I want creativity in my life--and I do--then I will have to make space for fear, too. Elizabeth Gilbert
03d4068 Listen, you're a powerful woman and you're used to getting what you want out of life, and you didn't get what you wanted in your last few relationships and it's got you all jammed up. Your Elizabeth Gilbert
233f2fb A different way is to cooperate fully, humbly, and joyfully with inspiration. Elizabeth Gilbert
8a58a4e You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama or dread. Elizabeth Gilbert
6b0cd55 There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey and the Book of Common Prayer." For some people, that's truly enough. For others, more drastic measures are required." Elizabeth Gilbert
40bb671 Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time Elizabeth Gilbert
7f10382 You didn't show up ready enough, or fast enough, or openly enough for the idea to take hold within you and complete itself. Therefore, the idea went hunting for a new partner, and somebody else got to make the thing. Elizabeth Gilbert
8531f9b It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us. Because "they" (the powers-that-be) have never been entirely able to stop "us" (two people" from connecting our lives together and creating a secret world of our own. And so "they" eventually have no choice but to legally permit "us' to marry, in some shape or .. Elizabeth Gilbert
34bfc73 Everything is so goddamn scary. Defending Elizabeth Gilbert
7b4c662 I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note--only one word, actually--and that word was "STOP!" My fear never had anything more interesting or subtle to offer than that one emphatic word, repeated at full volume on an endless loop: "STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!" Which" Elizabeth Gilbert
98db83b Take seriously. Make punctual. Be cool and easy. Remember--everything you do, you do for God. And everything God does, He do for you. Elizabeth Gilbert
a041aed Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master--because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And Elizabeth Gilbert
bd60f1f I've met travelers who are so physically sturdy they could drink a shoebox of water from a Calcutta gutter and never get sick. People who can pick up new languages where others of us might only pick up infectious diseases. People who know how to stand down a threatening border guard or cajole an uncooperative bureaucrat at the visa office. People who are the right height and complexion that they kind of look halfway normal wherever they go .. traveling Elizabeth Gilbert
298083e Aside from my cockeyed internal compass, I also have a shortage of personal coolness, which can be a liability in travel. I have never learned how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know - that super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of riot in Jakart.. traveling Elizabeth Gilbert
a449284 Humor is hard to catch in a second language. Especially when you're as serious a young man as Giovanni. He said to me the other night, 'When you are ironic, I am always behind you. I am slower. It is like you are the lightning and I am the thunder. irony language Elizabeth Gilbert
d7cff38 you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. This Elizabeth Gilbert
89567c1 Don't fret about the irrationality and unpredictability of all this strangeness. Give in to it. Such is the bizarre, unearthly contract of creative living. There is no theft; there is no ownership; there is no tragedy; there is no problem. There is no time or space where inspiration comes from - and also no competition, no ego, no limitations. There is only the stubbornness of the idea itself, refusing to stop searching until it has found a.. Elizabeth Gilbert
64f03ed As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff of it is bad for you. I Elizabeth Gilbert
8375f64 Over the course of the summer, he taught the children to eat foods they had never known, to sharpen and use knives, to carve their own spoons, to make knots and play Indian games and- every time they cut a branch off a living tree- to cut away a small lock of their own hair, to leave as an offering of thanks. Elizabeth Gilbert
1c7c3d2 Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Why" Elizabeth Gilbert
3de624b You know, you seem like a completely different person, now that you're with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David. You even dress like him and talk like him. You know how some people look like their dogs? I think maybe you always look like your men. identity Elizabeth Gilbert
3697021 My spiritual investigations interest my sister mostly from a point of intellectual curiosity. 'I think that kind of faith is so beautiful,' she whispers to me in the church, 'but I can't do it, I just can't... Elizabeth Gilbert
8d68ae6 A creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living Elizabeth Gilbert
933219a 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've given up. Every Elizabeth Gilbert
7a6b9d2 you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear 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. Drop Elizabeth Gilbert
916b49a inspiration will always try its best to work with you--but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator. Elizabeth Gilbert
66e7d23 No, when I refer to "creative living," I am speaking more broadly. I'm talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear. One" Elizabeth Gilbert
d4a133c I wrote that book anyhow, because I needed to write it for my own intimate purposes - and also because I was curious to see if I could convey my emotional experiences adequately on paper. reason-for-writing reasons-for-writing why-i-write why-to-write why-we-write why-write writing writing-inspiration writing-motivation Elizabeth Gilbert
d24e6d4 how I choose to handle myself as a writer is entirely my own choice. I can make my creativity into a killing field, or I can make it into a really interesting cabinet of curiosities. I can even make it into an act of prayer. My ultimate choice, then, is to always approach my work from a place of stubborn gladness. Elizabeth Gilbert
813a6b0 she admitted that perhaps she wanted to be a writer. He smiled at the girl with infinite compassion and asked, "Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes." Elizabeth Gilbert
b7c7e13 creative living is a path for the brave. We Elizabeth Gilbert
5cc4264 Culturally, though not theologically, I'm a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Anglo-Saxon persuasion. And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can't swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian... Elizabeth Gilbert
63e71c5 from Beatrix in this case, who quoted the esteemed Swedish botanical taxonomist Carl Linnaeus on how to distinguish minerals from plants, and plants from animals: "Stones grow. Plants grow and live. Animals grow, live, and feel")." Elizabeth Gilbert
4af6496 both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish... life love pleasure Elizabeth Gilbert
953612d She heard her father's voice as she prepared, remembering all the times she had taken dictation for him, or had overheard him instructing young botanists. 'Be wakeful and watchful,' she heard Henry say. 'Make sure you are not the only member of your party who can write or read a letter. If you need need to find water, follow a dog. If you are starving, eat insects before you waste your energy on hunting. Anything that a bird can eat, you ca.. Elizabeth Gilbert
86b0627 El mundo esta lleno de muerte y podredumbre, pero los sabios no sufren, porque conocen las urdidumbres del mundo Elizabeth Gilbert