Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

Creativity is a crushing chore and a glorious mystery. The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.

I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress.

Do little things every day that no one else seems to want to do, be patient, and success will find you.

No matter what the industry you choose to ultimately invest all your time and energy in, be sure you're the owner, founder, and CEO. Remember, if you don't own it, you can't control it nor can you depend on it.

Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?

I look at the Augusteum,and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me to not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough--but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

There was no better path to autonomy for an ambitious young businesswoman than to be married off to a respectable corpse.