“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
“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
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
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
“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
There are so many things to be tortured about, sweet pea. So many torturous things in this life. Don't let the man… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of love.” — 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
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
All of us, as we mature and grow up - if we're doing life right - we evolve. — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“The question isn’t whether you should stay or go. The question is: How would your life be transformed if you chose to… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Very nice," said Rick after a while. "Very nice," he repeated, with more emphasis the second time. "What is?" I asked, turning… — 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
“Anything else? To be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of being. Your life will be a hundred… — 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
“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
“And it was true. I always would have guessed it, even all the time that I feared it would never happen. Being… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
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
“There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“I was twenty-two, the same age she was when she'd been pregnant with me. She was going to leave my life at… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“And in the meanwhile, cultivate an understanding of a bunch of the other things that the best, sanest people of the planet… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
I had to change. I had to change was the thought that drove me in those months of planning. Not into a… — 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
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
“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
