Top 500 Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

102. “Guilt’s just your ego’s way of tricking you into thinking that you’re making moral progress. Don’t fall for it, my dear.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

103. “Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

104. “The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

105. “Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

106. “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.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

107. “Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. The rest of it will take care of itself.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

108. “Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

109. “If you’re going to answer the call and you’re going to transform and you’re going to change, get ready. It is not a day at the beach.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

110. “I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

111. “That’s just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you’re flawed and broken and alone instead of whole.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

112. “Marriage is a strange combination of dream and reality, and we spend our lives as couples trying to negotiate that divide.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

113. “When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don’t even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

114. “Take me someplace where we can be silent together.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

115. “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.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

116. “Creativity asks you to enter realms with uncertain outcomes. People want to create a safe life for themselves so they try to live without fear and they end up killing their creativity in the process.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

117. “Change is all about motion, motion is all about uncertainty and we are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

118. “You must learn how to become a deeply disciplined half-ass.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

119. “Anyway, at some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

120. “Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

121. “I have a rigid self-accountability. You have to work hard.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

122. “There’s no trouble in this world so serious that it can’t be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

123. “Because when it all comes together, it’s amazing. When it all comes together, the only thing you can do is bow down in gratitude, as if you have been granted an audience with the divine. Because you have.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

124. “Success isn’t about acquiring things, it’s about discovering your life purpose and following the call.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

125. “Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

126. “Whenever I got those rejection letters, then, I would permit my ego to say aloud to whoever had signed it: “You think you can scare me off? I’ve got another eighty years to wear you down! There are people who haven’t even been born yet who are gonna reject me someday – that’s how long I plan to stick around.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

127. “If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

128. “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to discover those jewels––that’s creative living.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

129. “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?”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

130. “Keep showing up for your side of the job and give genius a chance to do its part.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

131. “Own your disappointment, acknowledge it for what it is, and move on.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

132. “Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

133. “The best we can do then, in response to our incomprehensible and dangerous world, is to practice holding equilibrium internally – no matter what insanity is transpiring out there.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

134. “It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainment.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

135. “Q: What is creativity? A: The relationship between a human being and the mysteries of inspiration.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

136. “I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the ‘monkey mind’ – the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

137. “Also, I could finally sleep. And this was the real gift, because when you cannot sleep, you cannot get yourself out of the ditch – there’s not a chance.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

138. “Most of all, I can choose my thoughts.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

139. “Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

140. “Done is better than good.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

141. “But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

142. “Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

143. “If you want to get to the castle, Groceries, you’ve got to swim the moat.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

144. “My heart was broken so badly last time that it still hurts. Isn’t that crazy? To still have a broken heart almost two years after a love story ends?”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

145. “Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have undressed in front of a gentleman has he ever asked you to leave? Has he ever walked out and left? No? It’s because he doesn’t care! He’s in a room with a naked girl, he just won the lottery.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

146. “Not everything has an answer.” Alma found this to be such a staggering piece of intelligence that she was struck dumb by it for several hours. All she could do was sit and ponder the notion in an amazed stupor.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

147. “I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

148. “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

149. “No experience in this world has ever been cathartic without the willing participation of the individual. Life does not automatically bestow wisdom or growth upon anyone just for showing up.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

150. “I found that eating alone by the window in a quiet restaurant is one of life’s greatest secret pleasures.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert