“Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be “over” your daughter’s death by now. The people who squawk the loudest… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“I didn't get to grow up and pull away from her and bitch about her with my friends and confront her about… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Grief is tremendous, but love is bigger. You are grieving because you loved truly. The beauty in that is greater than the… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
…the death of my mother was the thing that made me believe the most deeply in my safety: nothing bad could happen… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“It was only after her death that I realized who she was: the apparently magical force at the center of our family… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
My mother's death put me in touch with my most savage self. As I've grown up and come to terms with her… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
Small things such as this have saved me: how much I love my mother—even after all these years. How powerfully I carry… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Her death had obliterated that. It had obliterated me. It had cut me short at the very height of my youthful arrogance.… — 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
One of the scandalous things I did was as I read them afterward I would burn them. I loved them, but for… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
You have to keep walking, no matter what. If you don't, it's a living death. You're just standing in one place dying. — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard.” — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“. . . 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image