Excerpts from another book

Some excerpts from Eat Pray Love by Elizibeth Gilbert that I finished reading today:

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.

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.

Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you...

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.

I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who's in charge?"

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.

God dwells within you, as you.

Let your conscience be your guide.

Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.

One does have one's feminine pride...

The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go.

I had lines in my face now, permanent incisions dug between my eyebrows from crying and from worry.

Depression and Loneliness track me down ..
Depression on the left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well.We've been playing a car-and-mouse game for years now.

Strange interior gesture of friendship- the lending of a hand from me to myself when nobody else is around to offer solace.

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.

I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
I sit there staring at the computer screen in silence for a long, sad time. It's all for the best, I know it is. I'm choosing happiness over suffering. I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life wit yet-to-come surprises.I know all this. But still...

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

He doesn't try to put a reassuring arm around me , nor does he express the slightest discomfort about my explosion of sadness. Instead he just sits through my tears in silence, until I've calmed down. At which point he speaks with perfect empathy choosing each word with care, saying slowly and clearly and kindly.

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

Whats it like in hell?"Same as in heaven" he said.He saw my confusion and tried to explain. "Universe is a circle".I still wasn't sure I understood.He said, "To up, to down-all the same, at end.""Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?""Because of how you go. Heaven , you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up. Same in end, so better to happy on journey.So if heaven is love, then hell is .."?"Love too," he said."Always so difficult for young person to understand this!"