Top 500 Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Our relationship now thoroughly ruined, with even civility destroyed between us, all I wanted anymore was the door.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

302. “To even call somebody “a creative person” is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the senses for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

303. “The only boring people I know are bored people.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

304. “Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say – no detail spared in the quest for perfection.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

305. “Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me and tell me that you did.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

306. “In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

Featured in: Real Quotes

307. “Love is like that is a deep well with steep sides. Once you fall in, that’s it. You will love that person always.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

308. “Because creative living is a path for the brave. We all know this. And we all know that when courage dies, creativity dies with it. We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

309. “People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they’re wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it. So do the right thing with your youth, Vivian – squander it.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

310. “Teach your heart that this is destiny.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

311. “The appreciation of pleasure can be the anchor of humanity.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

312. “Anyhow, the older I get, the less impressed I become with originality. These days, I’m far more moved by authenticity. Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

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

— Elizabeth Gilbert

314. “I think it’s a mighty act of human love to remind somebody that they can accomplish things by themselves, and that the world does not automatically owe them any reward, and that they are not as weak and hobbled as they may believe.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

315. “Devotion is diligence without assurance.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

316. “With death, all suffering would end. Doubt would end. Shame and guilt would end. All her questions would end. Memory – most mercifully of all – would end. She could quietly excuse herself from life.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

317. “By unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later – again, for its own mysterious reasons.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

318. “My work is incredibly important to me personally. It brings me joy and it brings me life and it brings me meaning. It doesn’t necessarily have to be important to the people who read it.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

319. “It used to be that god was revealed in the wonders of nature; now God was being challenged by those same wonders. Scholars were now required to choose one side or the other.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

320. “The earliest evidence of recognizable human art is forty thousand years old. The earliest evidence of human agriculture, by contrast, is only ten thousand years old. Which means that somewhere in our collective evolutionary story, we decided it was way more important to make attractive, superfluous items than it was to learn how to regularly feed ourselves.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

321. “Look – I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

322. “Because the truth is, I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment – not entirely human in its origins.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

323. “I’m afraid many women do choose the wedding over the marriage. It seems a steep price to pay, but it comes from a place of deep, sad longing to be loved and to have it proven that you are of value.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

324. “I fell in love with him, and it made no sense for me to fall in love with him. We could not possibly have been more different. But maybe that’s where love grows best – in the deep space that exists between polarities.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

325. “Nobody until very recently would have thought that their husband was supposed to be their best friend, confidante, intellectual soul mate, co-parent, inspiration.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

326. “Learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job o fa creative person... Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

327. “Dear me, how I love a library.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

328. “I wonder if I am capable of being somebody’s sun, somebody’s everything. Am I centered enough now to be the center of somebody else’s life?”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

329. “When women are gathered together with no men around, they don’t have to be anything in particular; they can just be.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

330. “He was powerful and I died of love in his shadow.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

331. “Every intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

332. “Whatever this feeling is – this is what I have been praying for. And this is also what I have been praying to.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

333. “Nobody’s life is interesting enough to warrant a third memoir.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

334. “When I diagnose my depression now, I think it was partially about saying goodbye to these kids that I always expected to have but already knew that I wouldn’t.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

335. “It’s so much easier and cheaper to keep the river uncontaminated in the first place than it is to clean it up again once it’s been polluted.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

336. “Power is a neutral energy source, like tofu. It’s what you do with it that gives it flavor.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

337. “A lovely evening of new idioms and fresh mozzarella.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

338. “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

339. “Sanity and clarity are more important for me and I’m willing to give up a lot of shimmer for it. I’m willing to have more boring friends, who are sane.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

340. “If your goal in life is to become fearless, then I believe you’re already on the wrong path, because the only truly fearless people I’ve ever met were straight-up sociopaths and a few exceptionally reckless three-year-olds – and those aren’t good role models for anyone.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

341. “Marriage is – among other things – a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

342. “The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

343. “Ever since I’d met Edna Parker Watson, I tried to wear suits whenever possible. Among other lessons, that woman had taught me that a suit will always make you look more chic and important than a dress. And not too much jewelry! “A majority of the time,” Edna said, “jewelry is an attempt to cover up a badly chosen or ill-fitting garment.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

344. “Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

345. “You are free, because everyone is too busy fussing over themselves to worry all that much about you. Go be whomever you want to be, then. Do whatever you want to do. Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life. Create whatever you want to create – and let it be stupendously imperfect, because it’s exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice. And that’s awesome.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

346. “Nothing is less efficient than perfectionism.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

347. “If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

348. “I don’t think you can say that feminism has made women critical of marriage because women have been critical of marriage for centuries.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

349. “I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn’t wake him to share in my distress.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

350. “You never know how a good quest is going to end.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert