Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.
Elizabeth GilbertYou are here and you are allowed to be here and therefore you are allowed to make decisions about yourself and the people in your life; rather than sort of backing up and making sure it's okay with everybody at every turn.
Elizabeth GilbertYou can butcher the sheep only once. But if you are careful, you can shear the sheep every year.
Elizabeth GilbertYou are accidentally leaving your DNA all over everything in a novel because it's all coming from you.
Elizabeth GilbertThatโs the thing about a human life-thereโs no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.
Elizabeth GilbertThis is a nice metaphor, too, about mothers and daughters - that when it came time for me to make my own, I was making a completely different garden than the one that my mom has. They don't look like they came from relatives. Hers is a very productive and pragmatic vegetable garden, and mine is a ridiculous overabundance of useless plants. It doesn't feed anybody, it doesn't serve any purpose.
Elizabeth Gilbert