Elizabeth Gilbert: I have more compassion than if I had led a life whe...

In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.

Elizabeth Gilbert

bigs fans facts

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.

Elizabeth Gilbert

joy hands needs

God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality.

Elizabeth Gilbert

spiritual character order

Well, I always tried to look nice and be feminine even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there's no reason to add to everyone's misery by looking miserable yourself. That's my philosophy. This is why I always wore makeup and jewelry into the jungle-nothing too extravagant, but maybe just a nice gold bracelet and some earrings, a little lipstick, good perfume. Just enough to show that I still had my self-respect.

Elizabeth Gilbert

makeup nice philosophy

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.

Elizabeth Gilbert

italian night hands

You love new boyfriend?" "I think so. Yes." "Then you must spoil him. And he must spoil you.

Elizabeth Gilbert

new-boyfriend spoil thinking

Well, just remember--all your misery will be waiting for you at the door upon your exit, should you care to pick it up again when you leave.

Elizabeth Gilbert

care waiting doors

Richard didn't even have time to ask if I thought I'd ever amount to anything in this life before I looked him eye to eye and said, "I already have, mister.

Elizabeth Gilbert

this-life eye said

I was full of a hot, powerful sadness and would have loved to burst into the comfort of tears, but tried hard not to, remembering something my Guru once said -- that you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.

Elizabeth Gilbert

stay-strong powerful fall

In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite.

Elizabeth Gilbert

people way thinking

I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Elizabeth Gilbert

soul mind brain

Felipe and I, as we discover to our delight, are a perfectly matched, genetically engineered belly-to-belly success story.

Elizabeth Gilbert

belly delight stories

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.

Elizabeth Gilbert

motivation strong baby

in stillness, I watched myselfget eaten by mosquitoes... the itch was maddening at first but eventually it just melded into a general burning feeling and i rode that heat to a mld euphoria. I allowed the pain to lose its specific associations and become pure sensation... and that eventually lifted me out of myself and into meditation.

Elizabeth Gilbert

pain meditation feelings

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.

Elizabeth Gilbert

choices two order

I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it's all OK because he is so loved. He is surrounded by souls who would do anything to help him. And not only that--he has wisdom and patience of his own, buried deep inside his being, which will only reveal themselves over time and will always carry him through any trial. He is a gift from God to all of us.

Elizabeth Gilbert

lines soul world

Parla come magni,' It means, 'Speak the way you eat,' or in my personal translation: 'Say it like you eat it.' It's a reminder - when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words - to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman rood. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table.

Elizabeth Gilbert

tables simple mean

The resting place of the mind is the heart.

Elizabeth Gilbert

eat-love-pray mind heart

My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?

Elizabeth Gilbert

sacrifice dad mother

You make some big grandoise decision about what you need to do, or who you need to be, and then circumstances arise that immediately reveal to you how little you understood about yourself.

Elizabeth Gilbert

decision littles needs

I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person.