He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“I suppose this is what I mean when I say we cannot possibly know what will manifest in our lives.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“The most terrible and beautiful and interesting things happen in a life.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I taught workshops at universities. I wrote for magazines. This took time and insane amounts of juggling, but it's how I earned… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her. My whole life sort of ended… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“It hadn't occurred to me that my mother would die. Until she was dying, the thought had never entered my mind. She… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life.… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“He felt like a brother of mine, but not at all like my actual brother. He seemed like someone I'd always know… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. It was my life--… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“What this requires of us is that we don’t get tangled up in the living, even when we in fact feel woefully… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
So much of what I've learned, so much of what's good in my life, was learned because something bad happened, or from… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I never got to be in the driver's seat of my own life," she'd wept to me once, in the days after… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I had diverged, digressed, wandered, and become wild. I didn't embrace the word as my new name because it defined negative aspects… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
The writing life doesn't move in a straight line. I've had successes and rejections all along the way, at every stage of… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“That mystery is not the curse of our existence; it’s the wonder. It’s what people are talking about when they talk about… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
Don’t do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to doI don’t think there’s a single dumbass… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
It isn't enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“The most terrible and beautiful and interesting things happen in life. For some of you, those things have already happened. Whatever happens… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was,… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
Being so alone and so silent for so long gave me the opportunity to see how our brains actually work. I think… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“I didn't know how living outdoors and sleeping on the ground in a tent each night and walking alone through the wilderness… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“But now that she was dying, I knew everything. My mother was in me already. Not just the parts of her that… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“He said, “Don’t get me wrong. I want to hear everything about your life. But I want you to know that you… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It's the best thing we have to give and the most… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“That job and the fifteen others I had before I graduated college were my own, personal “educational opportunities.” They changed my life… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“When I say you don’t have to explain what you’re going to do with your life, I’m not suggesting you lounge around… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“She understands that attention is the first and final act of love, and that the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“The most terrible and beautiful and interesting things happen in life. For some of you, those things have already happened. Whatever happens to you… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
Of course you want someone special to love you. A majority of the people who write to me inquire about how they can get… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
It's still true that literary works by women, gays, and writers of color are often framed as specific, rather than universal, small rather than… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be “over” your daughter’s death by now. The people who squawk the loudest about such… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“. . . there was the actual doing it, quickly followed by the grim realization of what it meant to do it, followed by… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
He was the most ordinary man in all the world, and yet in her memory he'd become luminous, like the prince in a fairy… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It's the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“I never believed the boys were angry. I believed they were hurt and anger was the safest manifestation of their sorrow. It was the… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“It’s wrong that this is required of you. It’s wrong that your son died. It will always be wrong.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“Your ultimatum is simple. It’s fair. And it’s stating your own intentions, not what you hope theirs will be.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
“We aren't poor," my mother said, again and again. "Because we're rich in love.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share
