“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 metaphor…”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“So release yourself from that. Don't be strategic or coy. Strategic and coy are for jackasses. Be brave. Be authentic. Practice saying the word 'love' to the people you love so when it matters the most to say it, you will.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things b…”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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 we receive”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“I can't say when you'll get love or how you'll find it or even promise you that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it's never too much to ask for it and that it's not crazy to fear you'll never have it again, even though your fears are probably wrong.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“Go, even though you love him. Go, even though he is kind and faithful and dear to you. Go, even though he's your best friend and you're his. Go, even though you can't imagine your life without him. Go, even though he adores you and your leaving will devastate him. Go, even though your friends will b…”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com
“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.”— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com