Elizabeth Gilbert (b.1969) is an American journalist and author. She is best known for Eat, Pray, Love (2006,) a soul-searching memoir of her yearlong sojourn through Italy, India, and Bali.
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Gilbert studied political science at New York University and began her career as a journalist, writing for Spin, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Allure, Real Simple, and Travel + Leisure. Her initial books were the collection of short stories Pilgrims (1997,) the novel Stern Men (2000) and The Last American Man (2002,) a biography of the modern woodsman and naturalist Eustace Conway.
Gilbert’s bestselling Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (2006) was a chronicle of her year of “spiritual and personal exploration” traveling abroad. This blend of travelogue, mysticism, self-help, and self-improvement was on The New York Times best-seller list for 182 straight weeks and sold over 12 million copies in over 30 languages. The book was also made into a film (starring Julia Roberts) of the same name in 2010.
Gilbert’s ensuing works include the memoirs Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (2010) and Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (2015.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Elizabeth Gilbert
People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes travel the around the world looking for it. … Once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
Tis’ better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
Topics: How to Live
The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
Topics: Trust
As best as can be determined, the world is now warmer than it has been at any point in the last two millennia, and, if current trends continue, by the end of the century it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
—Elizabeth Gilbert
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