Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

It was almost like the room was still warm from his presence.

He told them that they must live their most creative lives as a means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world.

(Experience has taught me to be careful of meeting my heroes in person; it can be terribly disappointing.)

“Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”

Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.

We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.

I got a mother who wasn’t having it. She wasn’t having a minute of my drama, which is probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

I think it was just this: I finally realized that my fear was boring.

truth that there’s plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.

Because this is the other side of the contract with creativity: If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.

her superpower is to conceal her superpowers.

(For better or for worse, my dad taught me that the best place to pitch a tent will always be the spot marked NO CAMPING.)

You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life.

Human beings have been creative beings for a really long time—long enough and consistently enough that it appears to be a totally natural impulse.

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).

“We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.” They aren’t. They weren’t. They never were.

Go be whomever you want to be, then. Do whatever you want to do. Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life.

But that’s only because of what I have chosen to trust, which is quite simply: love. Love over suffering, always.

The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.