Elizabeth Gilbert: Living

“The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.”

“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.”

“A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where shall they live?”

“So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.”

“I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights but also devote myself to God.”

“Most of us, even if only for two minutes in our lives, have experienced at some time or another an inexplicable and random sense of complete bliss, unrelated to anything that was happening in the outside world.”

“I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.”

“So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”

“What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?”

“You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work.”

“Traveling-to-a-place energy and living-in-a-place energy are two fundamentally different energies”

“living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.”

“Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.”

“I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.”

“I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what i want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.”