Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

There is a part of me in every character, naturally. That's why novelists rarely write good autobiographies. You start one and it becomes another novel.

Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.

I've heard Stephen King say that when you write a novel you end up revealing everything about yourself.

'M Train' is as close to knowing what I'm like as anything. I don't know exactly what the book is about. All and nothing, I suppose.

Acting is about giving yourself away, like the U2 song 'With or Without You.' You just don't stay behind a character and make people laugh or cry. At some point you have to take off that mask, and when you do, you're a human being, not just an actor. After all, I'm Catherine the person first. You share that.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

I've spent most of my life writing and developing everything that I've wanted to be in - which is why I started writing in the first place.

The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.

'Beautiful' was something that I kept really close to my heart, that I kept from a lot of people for years and years. It's my story. And I think that was the first impression I needed to give to people as a solo artist. This is who I am; this is what I'm about.

It's true that all my novels have been versions of myself to some degree.

Ultimately, I don't think you can be a character who's completely alien or divorced from your own personality. It's probably true of every writer - it's probably true of every filmmaker, every songwriter - that, ultimately, every character you create is a facet of yourself.

A novel, especially a first novel, is... really an emotional autobiography. All these emotions I'm embarrassed at having had, I've written about.

I'm so proud of 'As She Pleases.' It's a really personal record, and I put so much of myself into it that; it feels like I am sharing part of my soul with the world by releasing it.

I think that I've always written about things that are very personal, but initially, I coded everything.

You know how they say, "Find your voice"? That's your voice, in your pajamas. And it doesn't mean that you're going to publish it or print it or people are going to see you in your pajamas. It just means you are going to construct the foundation in your pajamas, in that voice.

When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity.

We are living in a world where the individual must learn to command the raw materials of expression. He must not be dependent all the time on the ready-made, the finished product. It's the transferring, the changing of the raw into what is the expression of your own self – the whole joy and satisfaction and frustration of life is built into this.

Perhaps one would be wise when young even to avoid thinking of oneself as a writer - for there's something a little stopped and satisfied, too healthy, in that. Better to think of writing, of what one does as an activity, rather than an identity - to write, I write; we write; to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun; to keep working at the thing, at all hours, in all places, so that your life does not become a pose, a pornography of wishing.

I feel terribly vulnerable and 'not-myself' when I'm not writing.

It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing.

I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.

A writer, or a beginning writer, is faced by the huge walls of self-consciousness. Most people think, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't sound erudite and sophisticated? I'll be considered a fool." In time, with a lot of practice, you realize that's your foolishness is your gift.

Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.

I've been really lucky to spend some time around actors and artists I really admire. One thing I gathered from asking a lot of questions is that part of this job and this life we've chosen is doing personal exploration in front of an audience. In a lot of ways, that's what art is: personal searching with people watching.