"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."
— Elizabeth Gilbert
i mean, seriously, folks... don't be that girl who goes to see the movie before you read this book. you will regret it. take my word for it.
where there is love (of eating, praying, and loving?), there is art.
hey hay. hadn't thought about eat, pray, love in a while. i read it while i was living in morocco, and since i have kind of written it off as cheesy and overrated. however, after that quote you wrote, i remembered writing down a few of my favorites from the book in my journal while i was reading it. just dusted the journal (a parting gift from r.b.) off, and thought you might like to know what inspired me while reading it:
ReplyDeletefrom pg. 29:
"I wanted what the Greeks called 'kalos kai agathos,' the singular balance of the good and the beautiful."
another excerpt, not sure of the page:
“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.”
L