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
inspirational regret life-changing
It seemed to me the way it must feel to people who cut themselves on purpose. Not pretty, but clean. Not good, but void of regret. I was trying to heal. Trying to get the bad out of my system so I could be good again. To cure me of myself.
inspirational life-changing rooms
Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren't a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.
memories perspective wanted
Obviously memoir is subjective truth: It is my memory, my perspective, that's the beauty. But I still wanted to be as factual as I could.
memories men world
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 tale.
long time-heals sweetheart
It's a long life, sweetheart, and time heals all wounds.
hard-work incredibles hard
Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!
lonely night feet
I made it the mantra of those days; when I paused before yet another series of switchbacks or skidded down knee-jarring slopes, when patches of flesh peeled off my feet along with my socks, when I lay alone and lonely in my tent at night I asked, often out loud: Who is tougher than me? The answer was always the same, and even when I knew absolutely there was no way on this earth that it was true, I said it anyway: No one.
daughter mean eye
When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.
dream block heart
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.
might becoming twenties
In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.
love-you writing unique
Of course you want someone special to love you. A majority of the people who write to me inquire about how they can get the same thing... Unique as every letter is, the point each writer reaches is the same: I want love and I'm afraid I'll never get it. It's hard to answer those letters because I'm an advice columnist, not a fortune-teller. I have words instead of a crystal ball. I can't say when you'll get love or how you'll find it or even promise that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it's never too much to ask for it.
inspirational life-changing giving
The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.
real grief home
The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.
mother funny-relationship iron
My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.