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 have now reached infatuationโs final destinationโthe complete and merciless devaluation of self.
Elizabeth GilbertBy unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose laterโagain, for its own mysterious reasons.
Elizabeth GilbertAccording to the mystics, this search for divine bliss is the entire purpose of a human life. this is why we all chose to be born, and this is why all the suffering and pain of life on earth is worthwhile--just for the chance to experience this infinite love. And once you have found this divinity within, can you hold it? Because if you can...bliss.
Elizabeth GilbertA lot of [erotica] was really interestingly disguised in the 19th-century as medical journals. So it would be in the voice of a learned doctor talking about somebody's pathologies. And then it would get really detailed. And then it would get really sweaty. And then you're like, "This isn't a doctor! I would like to see a degree, Mister!"
Elizabeth Gilbert