Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

I don't mean that creative people are somehow finer, or more sensitive, and thus have finer, more sensitive nervous breakdowns - you can save that horseshit for the Sylvia Plath worshipers. It's just that creative people have creative breakdowns.

I think art doesn't have to be created in a period of misery, but it certainly helps.

I don't think I'm an unhappy person. It's just an intensity, not a depressive thing. It's just not having enough layers of skin. It's exhausting.

I'm way too hypersensitive.

I'm overemotional.

I'm constantly on the brink of tears in conversation about things that happen to people.

Depression is a real demon in the woods for a lot of creative people, you know? It's part of what the documentary is trying to be about for me, finding balance, where the beauty that is attainable in the creative arts can be matched with the scratchy roughness of regular life.

People who go into the arts are often hurt people. Many are manic-depressive. Some have tried suicide and some have succeeded. It's just part of the game. We are people who are oversensitive. That's why we're in this business, because of our need to communicate.

Comedians are the nearest to suicide.

I'm very emotional. I do feel stuff, for better or worse.

I'm very sensitive and I'm quite a soft person, and I cry a lot when things upset me.

I think people who are artists, actors, singers, great songwriters, they tend to have a hyper state of emotion where they feel things very, very deeply, probably more deeply than the average person walking down the street where it may affect them, but not to the same extent.

It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from.

I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.

I'm happy, I would say that I'm one of the happiest people I know but I've certainly had periods of profound sadness, depression and heartache and those are the kind of things that are interesting to me to write about.

I am very emotional, and I get really upset when any of my films flop. I also get hurt over silly things. That is the way I am; I can't help it.

Oh, I've always been very... Emotional. 'Hypersensitive' is what they call it, I think.

If I don't stay creative and if I don't stay in the studio and keep writing and recording, I get kind of depressed. I can't quite remember what I'm supposed to be doing with myself.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.

I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.

I am a better writer for having fewer demons, and I am more curious about the world and the people in it. So those of you thinking you might need your demons in order to be creative: I beg to differ.

Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.

People don't know how to talk about being depressed - that it's totally okay to feel sad.