Cheryl Strayed

“She understands that attention is the first and final act of love, and that the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement…

— Cheryl Strayed

“The most terrible and beautiful and interesting things happen in life. For some of you, those things have already happened. Whatever happens…

— Cheryl Strayed

Of course you want someone special to love you. A majority of the people who write to me inquire about how they…

— Cheryl Strayed

It's still true that literary works by women, gays, and writers of color are often framed as specific, rather than universal, small…

— Cheryl Strayed

My whole life sort of ended when my mom died.

— Cheryl Strayed

“And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“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

“. . . there was the actual doing it, quickly followed by the grim realization of what it meant to do it,…

— Cheryl Strayed

“The sky didn't wonder where it was.”

— Cheryl Strayed

He was the most ordinary man in all the world, and yet in her memory he'd become luminous, like the prince in…

— Cheryl Strayed

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

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

— Cheryl Strayed

“It’s wrong that this is required of you. It’s wrong that your son died. It will always be wrong.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Your ultimatum is simple. It’s fair. And it’s stating your own intentions, not what you hope theirs will be.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“We aren't poor," my mother said, again and again. "Because we're rich in love.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Oh, the dream. The goddamned man + baby dream. Written by the High Commission on Heterosexual Love and Sexual Reproduction and practiced…

— Cheryl Strayed

“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

“It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“Acceptance asks only that you embrace what's true. Strange as it sounds, I don't think you've done that yet.... You're so outraged…

— Cheryl Strayed

But compassion isn't about solutions. It's about giving all the love that you've got.

— Cheryl Strayed

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

— Cheryl Strayed

The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand…

— Cheryl Strayed

The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it.

— Cheryl Strayed

“By the time I rose and started walking again, I didn’t begrudge my mother a thing. The truth was, in spite of…

— Cheryl Strayed

“One thing I never forgot from my Latin class is that a language that is descended from another language is called a…

— Cheryl Strayed