You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.
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Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed (/ˈstreɪd/; née Nyland; born September 17, 1968) is an American memoirist, novelist, and essayist. The author of four books, her award-winning writing has been published widely in national magazines and anthologies. Strayed's first book, the novel Torch, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in February 2006 to positive critical reviews. Torch was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and selected by The Oregonian as one of the top ten books of 2006 by writers living in the Pacific Northwest. In October 2012, Torch was re-issued by Vintage Books with a new introduction by Strayed. Strayed's second book, the memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail was published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf on March 20, 2012, and has been translated into 30 languages. The week of its publication, Wild debuted at number 7 on the New York Times Best Seller list in hardcover non-fiction. In June 2012, Oprah Winfrey announced that Wild was her first selection for her new Oprah's Book Club 2.0. The next month Wild reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, a spot it held for seven consecutive weeks. The paperback edition of Wild was published by Vintage Books in March 2013, where it has spent 126 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller lis
The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.
In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.
I hope when people ask what you’re going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you’ll say: ‘Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire;’ or maybe just: ‘Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters.’ And then…
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be ‘over it’ by now. The people who squawk the loudest about such things have almost never had to get over anything. Or at least not anything that was genuinely, mind..soul-crushingly life altering.
It is not so incomprehensible as you pretend, sweet pea. Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting,…
Don’t do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don’t stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don’t fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don’t focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don’t…
It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely…and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and…
The place of true healing is a fierce place. It's a giant place. it's a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light.
You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success.
What’s important is that you make the leap. Jump high and hard with intention and heart. Pay no mind to the vision that the commission made up. It’s up to you to make your life. Take what you have and stack it up like a tower of teetering blocks. Build your dream around that.
It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.
Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.