Quote

Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true.

Elizabeth Gilbert

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Elizabeth Gilbert
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: July 18
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
Waterbury
Connecticut
Made
Energy
Equally
True
Teeth
Cannot
Bones
Truth
Exists
Also
Flesh
Human
Memory
Anatomy
Humans
Memories
Literal
Writing
Faith
Poetic

More quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Marriage is not simply a romantic union between two people it's also a political and economic contract of the highest order.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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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.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as well, knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds, for any sad reason, change.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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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.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Being a woman did not look enviable to me, even when it looked admirable. It looked like nonstop sacrifice and service. Because it was. Being a woman seemed vulnerable and sad. Even the strong women I knew - and they were all strong - had earned their strength through enduring huge disappointments and tremendous struggles.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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The beauty and variety of the natural world are merely the visible legacies of endless war.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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It's so much easier and cheaper to keep the river uncontaminated in the first place than it is to clean it up again once it's been polluted.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Everything good I've ever gotten in life, I only got because I gave something else up.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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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
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Women are capable of enduring a tremendous amount of disappointment and still have a good life.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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As for discipline—it's important, but sort of overrated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Nothing in the last few years has dazzled me more than Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall,' which blew the top of my head straight off. I've read it three times, and I'm still trying to figure out how she put that magnificent thing together.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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I used to say, 'Man, I think I'd be a really good dad. I'll be a great provider. I'm funny I'll go on trips with them - I'll do all sorts of stuff.' But the momming? I'm not made for that. I have a really good mom I know what she put into it.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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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.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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There is a theory that if you yearn sincerely enough for a Guru, you will find one. The universe will shift, destiny's molecules will get themselves organized and your path will soon intersect with the path of the master you need.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Mistakes will be made. Failure will occur. You pick yourself up and carry on.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Reality has taught us that no woman can build an honest life without sacrificing something along the way. Deciding what will be sacrificed is not easy.
Elizabeth Gilbert