Best Of Elizabeth Gilbert's "All the Way to the River"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from All the Way to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert

I sometimes used to call this behaviour "being a free spirit," but my wild instability was quite the opposite of freedom, because I had no agency in the matter—only urgency. Also, if I was so "free," why did I always end up feeling trapped? It's because my moves were motivated by desperate situations in which I was running either toward somebody or away from somebody else. I constantly found myself in stories that started out with passion but ended up with shame.

p.63

That was the plan: to have no plan anymore but God's plan [...]They discovered that the question "What is thy will for me?" seemed to open the door to divinity quite nicely. Whenever they asked that question with sincere humility, they actually heard and felt guidance arriving [...]

p.138

Gilbert is actually quoting her sponsor below, and this quote reminded me of the power of reading memoirs:

"And listen for your higher power's voice when you hear other people sharing. You'll begin to hear direction for your own life in the stories that other people tell. Keep an open mind. Te'll all start to make sense eventually."

p.326

My sponsor helped me to understand this tedium, explaining that boredom is nothing more than a cover for anxiety--and that anxiety is what drives us to seek out all that drama, excitement, and distraction in the first place. In fact, drama and boredom are both symptoms of high anxiety, signalling a deep inability to simply be. When serenity is either unavailable or unattainable, only drama and boredom will ever be on the menu.

p.333-334