Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

"Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all."

"Man is a demon, man is a god. Both true."

"All I could say was, "I don't know what to do." I remember her taking me by the shoulders and looking me in the eye with a calm smile and saying simply, "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth."

"The gods are fond of the cryptic and dislike the evident."

"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."

"The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, Let go."

"We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentment and mortality."

"One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation."

"Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation."

"You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions."

"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."

"The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi warned, you are destined for unhappiness. Better to live a life of single-pointed focus, he taught. But what about the benefits of living harmoniously among extremes? What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?"

"Parla come magni,' It means, 'Speak the way you eat,' or in my personal translation: 'Say it like you eat it.' It's a reminder - when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words - to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman rood. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table."

"Instructions for freedom":1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions.2. You have just climbed up and above the roof, there is nothing between you and the Infinite; now, let go.3. The day is ending, it's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. You are being here is God's response, let go and watch the stars came out, in the inside and in the outside.5. With all your heart ask for Grace and let go. 6. With all your heart forgive him, forgive yourself and let him go.7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering then, let go.8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cold night, let go.9. When the Karma of a relationship is done, only Love remains. It's safe, let go.10. When the past has past from you at last, let go.. then, climb down and begin the rest of your life with great joy."

"It all goes away. Eventually, everything goes away."

"The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection."

"Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave."

"Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water."

"But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it? Or to nap in a garden, in a patch of sunlight, in the middle of the day, right next to your favourite fountain? And then to do it again the next day?"

"The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying the only thing more impossible than stayin the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.g was leaving."