Elizabeth Gilbert was born in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1969, and grew up on a small family Christmas tree farm. She attended New York University, where she studied political science by day and worked on her short stories by night. After college, she spent several years traveling around the country, working in bars, diners and ranches, collecting experiences to transform into fiction.
These explorations eventually formed the basis of her first book – a short story collection called PILGRIMS, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and which moved Annie Proulx to call her “a young writer of incandescent talent”.
During these early years in New York, she also worked as a journalist for such publications as Spin, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. She was a three-time finalist for The National Magazine Award, and an article she wrote in GQ about her experiences bartending on the Lower East Side eventually became the basis for the movie COYOTE UGLY.
In 2000, Elizabeth published her first novel, STERN MEN (a story of brutal territory wars between two remote fishing islands off the coast of Maine) which was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2002, Elizabeth published THE LAST AMERICAN MAN – the true story of the modern day woodsman Eustace Conway. This book, her first work of non-fiction, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Elizabeth is best known, however for her 2006 memoir EAT PRAY LOVE, which chronicled her journey alone around the world, looking for solace after a difficult divorce. The book was an international bestseller, translated into over thirty languages, with over 12 million copies sold worldwide. In 2010, EAT PRAY LOVE was made into a film starring Julia Roberts. The book became so popular that Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to EAT PRAY LOVE called COMMITTED—a memoir which explored her ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage. The book immediately became a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and was also received with warm critical praise. As Newsweek wrote, COMMITTED “retains plenty of Gilbert’s comic ruefulness and wide-eyed wonder”, and NPR called the book “a rich brew of newfound insight and wisdom.”
Her 2013 novel THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS is a sprawling tale of 19th century botanical exploration. O Magazine named it “the novel of a lifetime”, and the Wall Street Journal called it “the most ambitious and purely-imagined work of (Gilbert’s) twenty-year career.” THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS was a New York Times Bestseller, and Janet Maslin called it “engrossing…vibrant and hot-blooded.” The novel was named a Best Book of 2013 by The New York Times, O Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The New Yorker.”
In 2015, she published BIG MAGIC: CREATIVE LIVING BEYOND FEAR—a book that encapsulates the joyful spirit of adventure and permission that Elizabeth has always brought to her work and to her life.
Her latest novel is CITY OF GIRLS — a rollicking, sexy tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s.
Click on the image for more context.
“Creativity does not belong exclusively to professional artists and geniuses; it is the birthright of every single human being. Creativity is our common heritage. You don’t need to quit your job and move to Paris in order to lay claim to this heritage – all you have to do is clear some space in your life for whimsy, invention, sensory pleasure, and play. Most of all, you have to learn how to follow your curiosity more than your fear.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results – the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“The world is like a dropped pie most of the time. Don’t kill yourself trying to put it back together. Just grab a fork and eat some of it off the floor. Then carry on.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“Mistakes will be made. Failure will occur. You pick yourself up and carry on.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time. I can decide 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.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“‘Om Namah Shivaya’, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“Embrace the glorious mess that you are.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“As for discipline – it is important, but it’s also overrated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“The only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“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.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind’s workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being – and a normal one, at that?” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“There is a reason they call God a presence – because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“And then, in that regal silence, finally – I began to meditate on (and with) God.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.
“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner – continually AND STUBBORNLY bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you – is a fine art, in and of itself.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Click on the image for more context.