Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayedis an American memoirist, novelist, and essayist. The author of four books, her award-winning writing has been published widely in national magazines and anthologies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 September 1968
CitySpangler, PA
CountryUnited States of America
universe
The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding.
sacred mysterious irrevocable
It was my life — like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.
needed amazed surprising
I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.
fun healing ordinary
Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do.
term
You get to define the terms of your life.
hard-work incredibles hard
Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!
mother grief son
Small things such as this have saved me: how much I love my mother—even after all these years. How powerfully I carry her within me. My grief is tremendous but my love is bigger. So is yours. You are not grieving your son’s death because his death was ugly and unfair. You’re grieving it because you loved him truly. The beauty in that is greater than the bitterness of his death.
unfolding
Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding
mother regret spring
One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life. Say thank you.
half other-half rising
...the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary—is having been nailed to the cross.
selfish reality firsts
But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.
book writing blue
Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.
grief men rooms
I had problems a therapist couldn't solve; grief that no man in a room could ameliorate.
children father said
Wounded?” was all I could manage. “Yes,” said Pat. “And you’re wounded in the same place. That’s what fathers do if they don’t heal their wounds. They wound their children in the same place.