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We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we are afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.

Elizabeth Gilbert

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Elizabeth Gilbert
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: July 18
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
Waterbury
Connecticut
Things
Misery
Road
Gift
Crumbling
Afraid
Settle
Stay
Ruin
Living
Settling
Inspirational
Ruins
Change
Transformation

More quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

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With each reunion (we) had to learn each other all over again. There was always that nervous moment at the airport when I would stand there waiting for him to arrive, wondering, Will I still know him? Will he still know me?
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Time -- when pursued like a bandit -- will behave like one always remaining one country or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping ou the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you.
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Every few years, I think, 'Maybe now I'm finally smart enough or sophisticated enough to understand 'Ulysses.'' So I pick it up and try it again. And by page 10, as always, I'm like, 'What the hell?'
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I went to Shea Stadium and used the men's room. Terrifying. There was this little kid looking at me through the crack [in the stall]. and I was like, If you tell anyone what you've seen...
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We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentment and mortality.
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As a writer, you always read in two minds: You read as a reader and you enjoy it, and you look at it as a writer, and you just admire the architecture and the construction.
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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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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.
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My mom is a master gardener and I grew up on a farm. I came back to it really late in life and discovered that despite how lazy and inattentive I was as a child, I had managed to accidentally learn quite a bit about gardening.
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I've been screwed and sued and tattooed, and I'm still standin' here in front of you.
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Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
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Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Who loves you most? Who loves you best? Who thinks of you when others rest?
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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.
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The trick at every turn was to endure the test of living for as long as possible. The odds of survival were punishingly slim, for the world was naught by a school of calamity and an endless burning furnace of tribulation. But those who survived the world shaped it--even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.
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the beauty of doing nothing
Elizabeth Gilbert
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The idea that a prisoner would confess to a complete stranger that he had committed a crime - I just didn't buy that.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Now imagine a life in which every day a person is presented with not two or even three but dozens of choices, and you can begin to grasp why the modern world has become, even with all its advantages, a neurosis-generating machine of the highest order.
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Man is a demon, man is a god. Both true.
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You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes 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.
Elizabeth Gilbert