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" I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be 'the happiest moment' of one's life. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Life
Wedding
Moment
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" I think that people who live in cultures without quite so much privilege, opportunity or grandiosity have a little bit more respect for the workings of destiny, and the limitations that people can find themselves in through no fault of their own. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Live
Opportunity
Find
" If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
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Become
Own
" I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Time
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" Sureness is something like a neck brace, which we clamp around our lives, hoping to somehow protect ourselves from the frightening, constant whiplash of change. Sadly, the brace doesn't always hold. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Protect
Always
Change
" We set up one rule in our house, which is, 'Guests of guests cannot bring guests.' That rule was required because that happened one weekend, and we finally said, 'Okay, you know what? That's a little too much.' "
Elizabeth Gilbert
House
Know
You
" 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
Happy
Time
Think
" That is who Barack Obama is - a person of admirable character - and that is who he has remained for me over these last four years. I have not agreed with his every decision, but never once have I seen him break his cool, lose his composure, or abandon his insightful perspective - even during the most serious and/or absurd national disasters. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Cool
Character
Perspective
" When somebody has an enormous success in this culture, people start asking two questions, which are 'What are you doing now?' and 'How are you going to beat that?' And I have to say, I love the assumption that your intention is to beat yourself constantly - that you're in battle against yourself. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Culture
Love
People
" These days I settle for feeling only 85 percent sure about most things, most of the time. I believe this is keeping me sane, and I also believe that it's keeping me human. In fact, I'm 85 percent sure of it. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Believe
Me
I Believe
" Most important, though, I had to wait until I found the perfect traveling/eating/drinking/napping companion. And I did finally find him, two years ago - my Brazilian-born, French-speaking, wine-worshipping, tripe-consuming, uncomplaining traveler of a sweetheart. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Him
Important
Two
" I feel like there are women who are genuinely born to be mothers, and women who are born to be aunties, and women who really probably not should be allowed near children. The tragedy that happens is when any one of those women ends up in the wrong category. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Up
Feel
Children
" I've always been afraid of saying no to people because I don't want them to be disappointed and dislike me. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Want
Always
Me
" But when it comes to writing the thing that I've sort of been thinking about lately, is why? You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Writing
Earth
Know
" I have no business being a journalist. I'm the least, I'm the least - I'm the most trusting, I absolutely make a habit of believing anything that anybody tells me about themselves. I've never had any reason in the world to think that anyone has wanted to harm me, or lie to me. I believe whatever is being sold, most of the time. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
World
Habit
Business
" Now, if you are like me - if you are like practically anybody in America - then you probably hold some negative opinions about the French, based upon movies, rumors, recent headlines, unfortunate run-ins with Parisian waiters, or... you know... all that unpleasantness surrounding the Vichy regime. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Negative
Me
Know
" Listen - of course money changes everything, but so does sunlight, and so does food: These are powerful but neutral energy sources, neither inherently good nor evil but shaped only by the way we use them. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Way
Good
Powerful
" 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. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Think
Mom
Man
" I know I'm not a self-indulgent idiot; I also know I'm not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that's when the mental illness arrives. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
People
Famous
Mental Illness
" I have a rigid self-accountability. You have to work hard. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Work Hard
You
Rigid
" Which is - you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right? "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Book
World
Work
" There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.' "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Ride
Love
Pizza
" I don't think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Think
Reality
Mistakes
" You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Think
Responsibility
Creative
" I've always considered myself lucky that I do not have many passions. There's only one pursuit that I have ever truly loved, and that pursuit is writing. This means, conveniently enough, that I never had to search for my destiny; I only had to obey it. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Destiny
Search
Writing
" I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productive, you have to constantly outdo yourself, you have to constantly outdo your neighbor - all of the stuff that creates an incredibly productive society, but also a very neurotic one. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Push
Day
You
" What I think is amazing is not that 85% of people who get married under the age of 25 get divorced, it's that 15% of them stay together. How did they manage to pull that off? You almost can't wait too long. It's the single simplest measure to predict divorce. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Age
Together
People
" My writing practice taught me the important thing is steadfastness. It's not necessarily discipline. Discipline can become a prison. When your spiritual practices become another thing for you to be anxious about, they've lost their usefulness. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Practice
Spiritual
Writing
" I was a writer before 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and I'll be a writer after it's over. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Want
Eat
Life
" I think a lot of people who feel as though they desperately want to be married oftentimes simply desperately want to have a wedding. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Who
Want
Think
" I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there. "
Elizabeth Gilbert
Start
Thought
Success