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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
Stay
Ruin
Living
Settling
Ruins
Inspirational
Transformation
Change
Misery
Things
Road
Gift
Crumbling
Afraid
Settle

More quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark.
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But vegetarians can eat this...Because intestines aren't even meat, Liz. They're just sh$*.
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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.
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It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism.
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Embrace the glorious mess that you are
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I think sometimes we look at other people's marriages and we think they must always be so happy together. I don't know anybody who's married for a long time who hasn't somehow made room in their love story for the hate and resentment that they sometimes feel toward each other.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Liz, you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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When you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you don’t know when you’ll see each other again, you can become logjammed with the effort to say and do and settle everything at once.
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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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Listen to the whispers or soon you will be listening to the screams.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Equally disquieting are the times when we do make a choice, only to later feel as though we have murdered some other aspect of our being by settling on one single concrete decision.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, and I myself have been abandoned by those whom I begged to stay.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. (p.237)
Elizabeth Gilbert
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A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love - may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State, and that it sometimes takes a very long while for the State to grant you your leave.
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If I'm being forgiving of myself, I could say I'm somebody who was really hungry for experiences. The same thing that would make me go try to be a trail cook on a ranch was the same thing that would make me want to have sex with a couple cowboys while I was there.
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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I still can’t say whether I ever want children….I can only say how I feel now--grateful to be on my own. 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.
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A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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When you write a novel, there’s a level at which you are much more revealing about who you are because you’re less self-conscious about how you’re presenting yourself. You are accidentally leaving your DNA all over everything in a novel because it’s all coming from you.
Elizabeth Gilbert