If you have read Eat, Pray, Love you know that it is filled with everything you wish to do in a foreign country-- eat, admire beauty, and eat some more.  The book also spills over with subtle humor, the kind that touches your heart. Life lessons overtake the book (just look carefully for them) which is why I have compiled a list of amazing quotes from Elizabeth Gilbert as she travels through her much needed journey.

Italy

"In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible."

"Il bel far niente"; the beauty of doing nothing.

India

"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." 

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true." 

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." -Texas 

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

"I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."

Indonesia

"And love is  always complicated. But still human must try to love each other darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something." 

"...I'm the cake that just came out of the oven and it still needs some more time to cool before it can be frosted."

"Sometimes you count the days, sometimes you weigh them."

"The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy."




I think it would be a great idea to purchase this book and let it sit on your shelf as long as you need it to. Then, just when you need to read it, it will beckon you like a setting sun beckons the night. I'm not kidding; it's funny how when you need something it finally appears. I will probably read Elizabeth's Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage afterwards. It is a sequel and follow up to life after Eat, Pray, Love.