Elizbeth Gilbert Quotes

There are always two figures in a marriage, two votes, two conflicting sets of decisions, desires and limitations. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a woman. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Not all the reasons not to have children are the same, either, though. Nor are all those reasons necessarily selfish. I ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

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 Jakarta. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph. ~ Jack Gilbert

We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. ~ Jack Gilbert

My creative expression must be the most important thing in the world to me (if I am to live artistically), and it also must not matter at all (if I am to live sanely). ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.) ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

it is only experience and disillusionment that make me cautious. ~ Martin Gilbert

Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I'm not surprised he wants to challenge me here, where no one can protect me. He thinks I'm a weak woman. He thinks wrong. ~ Heather Day Gilbert

An emaciated gospel leads to emaciated worship ~ Greg Gilbert

I like teaching, too," said Gilbert. "It's good training, for one thing. Why, Anne, I've learned more in the weeks I've been teaching the young ideas of White Sands than I learned in all the years I went to school myself. ~ L.M. Montgomery

The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes. ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

She also knew this: if she had to kill somebody in order to save her own life, she would do so unhesitatingly. Lastly, she knew one other thing, and this was the most important realization of all: she knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I've always considered myself lucky that I do not have many passions. There's only one pursuit that I have ever truly loved, and that pursuit is writing. This means, conveniently enough, that I never had to search for my destiny; I only had to obey it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on. ~ Josiah Gilbert Holland

If I could read while I was driving, showering, socializing or sleeping, I would do it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I actually have a great deal of respect for antidepressants; I think they can be enormously mighty tools toward recovery. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

There was a place within my imagination so fathomlessly deep that the light of the real world could never touch it. Nothing but sex had ever been able to reach it. This place within me was prehuman, almost. Certainly, it was precivilization. It was a place beyond language. Friendship could not reach it. My creative endeavors could not reach it. Awe and joy could not reach it. This hidden part of me could only be reached through sexual intercourse. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

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. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

If you dare to create something and put it out there, after all, then it may accidentally stir up a response. That's the natural order of life: the eternal inhale and exhale of action and reaction. But you are definitely not in charge of the reaction - even when that reaction is flat-out bizarre. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

My own glints of darkness did not frighten him; he had such darkness of his own that nobody else's shadows scared him. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Christian Science ... is the direct denial both of science and of Christianity, for Science rests wholly on the recognition of truth and Christianity on the recognition of pain. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

the beauty of doing nothing ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Sticking to one woman is a small price to pay for so much as having seen one woman. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them. ~ Gilbert Gottfried

When I read the article [in The New Yorker] by David Grann, I was very struck by people responding to the article, of people thinking I was such a hero and what a wonderful person I was, and I didn't feel that at all. I felt like I had very much, like Todd [Willingham], taken a path of self-preservation. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I happen to think Latinas, Latin women, are the most beautiful women in the world. So that's what I'm going to draw. I love women from all cultures, of course, but if I was going to deal with any of them, that would be No. 1 for me. ~ Gilbert Hernandez

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. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Variety improves the things that we do too often, but it rules the things that we don't do often enough. ~ Daniel Gilbert

All the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

People will always want intimacy with one chosen person and you cannot have intimacy without privacy, which is why couples draw circles of privacy around themselves. They demand that family, neighbors and the law respect their union, and that is why we have marriage. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

You're a black belt in the 1st round but sometimes you're a purple belt in the 5th. ~ Gilbert Melendez

I think I deserve something beautiful. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Currents of humid wind swept down the mountainside. The air across the beach snapped and shimmied, like a bedsheet shaken out - as though the beach itself were shaking off the violence that had just been visited upon it. Then a humid calm would prevail, for a few hours or a few days, until another storm rolled in. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

No 'buts', Gilbert. You just make sense to me. It's nothing more special than that. ~ Peter Hedges

Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Imagine that. You just can't let your entire life go by worrying about your damned thighs. You'd never find happiness. ~ Sarah Gilbert

For Kitty Gilbert in 'Topsy-Turvy,' I had to get to the point where I could improvise in the style of 1880, which is difficult. The research for that was huge. ~ Lesley Manville

Taking the high road is hard work-- walking uphill requires strength and effort. Anyone can take the low road--walking downhill is easy. ~ Rachel St. John-Gilbert

I realize now that I always needed somebody to be infatuated with when I was twenty years old, and it didn't really matter who, apparently. Anybody with more charisma than me would do the trick. I was so unformulated as a human being, so unsteady in myself, that I was constantly grasping for attachment to another person - constantly anchoring myself to someone else's allure. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

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 three-year-olds - and those aren't good role models for anyone. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

We all have direct experience with things that do or don't make us happy, we all have friends, therapists, cabdrivers, and talk-show hosts who tell us about things that will or won't make us happy, and yet, despite all this practice and all this coaching, our search for happiness often culminates in a stinky mess. We expect the next car, the next house, or the next promotion to make us happy even though the last ones didn't and even though others keep telling us that the next ones won't. ~ Daniel Gilbert

Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

As a player leaving early, you always look back and wonder what could have been. But you have to be happy with your decisions, because you ultimately have to live with them. ~ Gilbert Arenas