Traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby―I just don't care what it puts me through.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

love life sacrifice travel

About Elizabeth Gilbert

Portrait of Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert (born July 18, 1969) is an American journalist and author. Her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, has sold over 12 million copies and has been translated into over 30 languages. The book was also made into a film of the same name in 2010.

More quotations from Elizabeth Gilbert

We were already separated, that was official, but there was still a window of hope left open that perhaps someday we could give things another try.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

hope relationships seperation

I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

love optimism relationship risk romance greatness men

People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

happiness effort luck travel weather fortune

I was perfectly happy in my boring life before you came along.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

life happiness boredom contentment

My heart was broken so badly last time that it still hurts. Isn't that crazy? To still have a broken heart almost two years after a love story ends?

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

love time heart hurt heartbreak

More quotations tagged with “travel”

People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.

—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love

happiness effort luck travel weather fortune

Where are we really going? Always home!

home travel destination

Photographer Yousuf Karsh and his wife were having lunch with astronaut Neil Armstrong after a photo session. Armstrong politely questioned the couple about the many different countries they had visited. "But, Mr. Armstrong," protested Mrs. Karsh, "you've walked on the moon. We want to hear about your travels."
"But that's the only place I've ever been," replied Armstrong apologetically.

—The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes

space countries travel place photography

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

—G. K. Chesterton

perception perspective travel returning

Traveling is a fool's paradise. . . . I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

identity self travel paradise