Cheryl Strayed

“You, get in”

— Cheryl Strayed

“I chose Van Gogh.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“And so I walked on.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Bagby Hot Springs.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“It creates a secret you're too beautiful to keep”

— Cheryl Strayed

Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!

— Cheryl Strayed

“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me”

— Cheryl Strayed

My whole life sort of ended when my mom died.

— Cheryl Strayed

“A mountain that’s had its very heart removed.”

— Cheryl Strayed

The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding.

— Cheryl Strayed

“The fuck is your life. Answer it.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“The sky didn't wonder where it was.”

— Cheryl Strayed

Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.

— Cheryl Strayed

“I did not cry. I only breathed. Horribly. Intentionally. And then forgot to breathe.”

— Cheryl Strayed

I felt something growing in me that was strong and real.

— Cheryl Strayed

In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.

— Cheryl Strayed

“I had no roof I made       Audacity my roof. ROBERT PINSKY, “Samurai Song”

— Cheryl Strayed

Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.

— Cheryl Strayed

“We're all going to die, Johnny. Hit the iron bell like it's dinnertime.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Perhaps by now I'd come far enough that I had the guts to be afraid.”

— Cheryl Strayed

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a…

— Cheryl Strayed

The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you're talking about because…

— Cheryl Strayed

“Afterwards, I limped around gathering rocks and built a small crap cairn, burying the evidence before hiking on.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Maybe it was ridiculous to go on a date with someone I'd barely spoken to and whose main appeal was that he…

— Cheryl Strayed

Every time I set foot on that trail, I feel grateful for the PCTA for doing the work it does to protect…

— Cheryl Strayed

“I never believed the boys were angry. I believed they were hurt and anger was the safest manifestation of their sorrow. It…

— Cheryl Strayed

Believe in the integrity and value of the jagged path. We don't always do the right thing on our way to rightness.

— Cheryl Strayed

“Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

— Cheryl Strayed

Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around…

— Cheryl Strayed

“I can’t tell you what to do. No one can. But as the mother of two children, I can tell you what…

— Cheryl Strayed

Once I was in a cafe in Portland and the woman at the next table and I began chatting and in the…

— Cheryl Strayed

When someone you love truly dies, you have to find them over and over again in the world, and I think you…

— Cheryl Strayed

“I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of…

— Cheryl Strayed

“To witness the way they leaned into each other and laced their fingers together and tugged each other tenderly down the paved…

— Cheryl Strayed

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll…

— Cheryl Strayed

“It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything…

— Cheryl Strayed

I really came to literature through poetry.

— Cheryl Strayed

You get to define the terms of your life.

— Cheryl Strayed

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

— Cheryl Strayed

Be brave enough to break your own heart.

— Cheryl Strayed