“I believe that I am loved beyond measure by a magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me power over practically nothing.”

“Writing gave me the thing that meditation promised, but I could never have it happen in meditation until very recently where time stops or changes, and I’m here but not here.”

“What if I’m not on duty all the time? What if I’m only on duty sometimes and I have to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is, and everything else, you all can take care of yourselves?”

“I’ve narrowed it down to three things that I need for me, for my system to be relaxed. It’s boundaries, priorities, and mysticism.”

“I am good at manifesting what I want, and I’m good at almost dying from getting what I want. So maybe there’s a better question to be asking than ‘What do I want?'”

“I think ‘It’s hard’ is a really good way to start with self-compassion.”

“It’s a very difficult thing to have a human incarnation. This is not an easy ride. Even a good life is a hard life.”

“Who told you you were supposed to get it right straight out of the gate? Who told you you were supposed to get it right seven out of seven days or that you’re constantly supposed to be improving like a Fortune 500 company, constantly going in this upward angle direction, a certain percentage every quarter? There’s billions of systems operating within your body alone, hormonal systems and chemical systems and viruses and bacteria. We’re such a complex mechanism, it’s so hard to figure out how to operate one of these things. I do really well in solitude, I can get this thing humming. I can get this machine and this mind and this heart where we are at a beautiful hum, but the instant you throw another complex human mechanism into my field, then I’ve got to adapt to their chemistry, and it’s hard.”

~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Hell Is a World Without You

She Walks in Beauty

Letters to a Young Poet