Sunday, October 10, 2010

What "Eat Pray Love" Says

I've read the book and I liked it a lot. This author writes in a very easy and interesting way. Yesterday I saw the movie. Honestly I prefer the book as it is not an action story, but I enjoyed it. The part about Rome brought me back amazing memories. I was about to scream "I wanna be back there".
Here are some quotes from the book I like:


“Some time after I’d left my husband, I was at a party and a guy I barely knew said to me, ‘You know you seem like a completely different person, now that you’re with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David [her new boyfriend]. You even dress like him and talk like him. You know how some people look like their dogs? I think maybe you always look like your men."

“The former Catholic nun who oughtta know about guilt, after all wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Guilt’s just your ego’s way of tricking you into thinking that you’re making moral progress.’”

"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 is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own 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 leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."

"I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And 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."

"This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something. "

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

"Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly."

"To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life."

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

"There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts."

"Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit."


"In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place."


"We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure--your perfection--is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart."

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

"I am a better person when I have less on my plate."

"You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control."


"I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine."

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God."


"Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots."

"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."

Now I'm reading "Committed" and I'll see how much more I can learn from this author. I'm grateful to the people who recommended those books to me.


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