W.S. Gilbert Quotes

traveling is the great true love of my life

library is a beautiful old thing

There is no choice more intensely personal, after all, than whom you choose to marry; that choice tells us, to a large extent, who you are.

I want to learn how to speak Italian. For years, I'd wished I could speak Italian--a language I find more beautiful than roses :)

he was still my romantic hero and I was still his living dream

You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

If something is rubbing so hard against you, you can be sure it's working on you.

the beauty of doing nothing

whenever I would feel such happiness my guilt alarm went off

If I'd had any way of knowing that things were- as Lily Tomlin once said- going to get a whole lot worse before they got worse, I'm not sure how I would have slept that night.

That's your friend. My husband is my best friend. He's not the mirror that holds up my flaws. He's just the guy who's like, 'I think you're terrific'... It's just simple, showing up for each other.

At the end of the day I am a writer, and if I don't take care of this, no one else will.

Sometimes beauty needs a bit of ignoring, to properly come into being.

There are times when the only access I have to the truest person that I am is when I'm alone and trying to solve a sentence. It's exciting, even when it's frustrating, even when I can't do it right.

It's what I call the haute couture, high-end version of fear perfectionism. It's just fear in really good shoes. But it's still fear.

I am determined to make the most of this life that I have, damn it - it's that kind of stubbornness I think we all need more of.

Nobody until very recently would have thought that their husband was supposed to be their best friend, confidante, intellectual soul mate, co-parent, inspiration.

I want to have a lasting experience of God.

Do you think there's any way humans can love each other without complication?

Sanity and clarity are more important for me and I'm willing to give up a lot of shimmer for it. I'm willing to have more boring friends, who are sane.

If you're alive, you're a creative person.

Marriage is not simply a romantic union between two people; it's also a political and economic contract of the highest order.

It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism.

Absolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny usually looks upon our most strident convictions with amusement, or perhaps even pity.

I was a writer before 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and I'll be a writer after it's over. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life.

If I could read while I was driving, showering, socializing or sleeping, I would do it.

I believe that - if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression - that you should take on this work like a holy calling.

Every few years, I think, 'Maybe now I'm finally smart enough or sophisticated enough to understand 'Ulysses.'' So I pick it up and try it again. And by page 10, as always, I'm like, 'What the hell?'

I've always been afraid of saying no to people because I don't want them to be disappointed and dislike me.

I'm a pleaser. That's my character.

Thich Nhat Hanh has the ability to bring forth the state of peace that we each inherently posses merely by his presence in a room-this is divine power.

It used to be that god was revealed in the wonders of nature; now God was being challenged by those same wonders. Scholars were now required to choose one side or the other.

One of these poems I wrote after having been here only a month. The other, I wrote this morning. In the space between the two poems, I have found acres of grace

My life's accomplishments? Sanity, and you.

How could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn’t it?

The beauty and variety of the natural world are merely the visible legacies of endless war.

Who loves you most? Who loves you best? Who thinks of you when others rest?

To show a longing for anything that one cannot have, for instance, is not a clever position.

I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all the acquisitions and accomplishments- they run you down in the end.

Beauty is not required. Beauty is accuracy's distraction.

the four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry.

Parla Come Mangi' --It is a common way to say 'be simple', 'don't try to be rhetorical' literaly: 'speak the way you eat

To be prosperous and happy in life, Henry, it is simple. Pick one woman, pick it well, and surrender.

You never know how a good quest is going to end.

I believe in miracles, I believe in the Law of Attraction, but even I don't think I'm big enough to manifest five Asian elephants cloaked in gold.

There's only one problem with the hero's journey, it never included women.

The hero's journey is simply who we are as human beings.

My whole life I've been an over-giver. My general operating policy has always been, 'If it belongs to me, don't worry: You can have it!'

There's nothing special about your fear.

The mosquitoes here are big enough to rape a chicken.