105 Best Cheryl Strayed Quotes From The Author Of 'Wild'

Cheryl Strayed is a well-known memoirist, essayist, and novelist from America.

Born Cheryl Nyland in Spangler, Pennsylvania, USA, the four books written by her are an indication of her great work and thoughts. As an essayist, her work has also been published in anthologies.

Her biggest success came from her book ‘Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail’, which is based on her real-life story. The book chronicles her journey and also has some brilliant advice for people of all ages.

This article has a list of 105 quotes by the great essayist and book author. These quotes from 'Wild' and from Strayed herself are truly inspirational. For more great quotes also check out these wild quotes and [hiking quotes] too!

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Some of the best Cheryl Strayed quotes are given below.

1. “I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here, I'd done right.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

2. “To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

3. “I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

4. “I was nothing to them and they were everything to me.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

5. “I write to find what I have to say.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

6. “The place of true healing is a fierce place.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

7. “But if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do a single thing differently.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

8. “You have to keep walking, no matter what. If you don’t, it’s a living death. You’re just standing in one place dying.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

9. "I was trying to find a new home in the world.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

10. “Run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

11. “Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

12. “Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

A list of the most popular quotes by Cheryl Strayed is given below. You'll surely find the quote that inspires you the most.

13. “Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

14. “I never had a mind for math. I simply couldn't hold the formulas and numbers in my head.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

15. “Desperation is unsustainable.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

16. “Until we as a gender refuse to wear any shoe that would be uncomfortable to walk a mile in, we’re perfectly screwed.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

17. “Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

18. “Believe in the integrity and value of the jagged path.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

19. “You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

20. “It’s a long life, sweetheart, and time heals all wounds.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

21. “I was a pebble. I was a leaf. I was the jagged branch of a tree.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

22. “I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

23. “We all suffer. We all have heartbreak.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

24. “What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”

-Cheryl Strayed.

25. “I walked until walking became unbearable, until I believed I couldn’t walk even one more step. And then I ran.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

26. “'No' is golden. ‘No’ is the kind of power the good witch wields.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

27. “Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward. I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

Some of the latest quotes or advice by Cheryl Strayed are given below.

28. “I'd finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

29. "I’m going to be nice to you even though you aren’t being nice to me."

-Cheryl Strayed.

30. “I looked south, to where I'd been, to the wild land that had schooled and scorched me.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

31. "The only way I've been able to stay informed without letting fury rule my life is to channel my rage into something that ultimately feels like love to me."

-Cheryl Strayed.

32. “It took me years to take my place among the ten thousand things again.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

33. “I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

34. “Perhaps by now, I’d come far enough that I had the guts to be afraid.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

35. “Jump high and hard with intention and heart.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

36. “My mother's death put me in touch with my most savage self.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

37. “There’s a crazy lady living in your head. I hope you’ll be comforted to hear you’re not alone.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

38. “What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was also what had got me here?”

-Cheryl Strayed.

39. “Just close your eyes and remember everything you already know.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

Given below are some famous quotes by Cheryl Strayed.

40. “We are all entitled to our opinions and religious beliefs.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

41. “I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

42. “I see myself both insignificant and profoundly connected to everything.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

43. “I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

44. “I've learned so much as both a writer and a human.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

45. “There isn’t a thing to eat down there in the rabbit hole of your bitterness, except your own desperate heart.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

46. “My mother saved hundreds of animals in her life.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

47. “Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

48. “If someone is being unkind or petty or jealous or distant or weird, you don’t have to take it in.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

49. “What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have?”

-Cheryl Strayed.

50. “My mom said there's a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there or not.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

51. “You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

52. “If there's one thing I believe more than I believe anything else, it's that you can't fake the core.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

53. “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.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

Some advice on love by Cheryl Strayed is given below.

54. “To love and be loved. That is the meaning of life.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

55. “There are so many things to be tortured about, sweet pea. So many torturous things in this life. Don’t let the man who doesn’t love you be one of them.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

56. “The whole deal about loving truly and for real and with all you’ve got has everything to do with letting those we love see what made us.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

57. “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.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

58. “I do think that love is the greatest force on earth.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

59. “Can I convince the person about whom I’m crazy to be crazy about me? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

60. “Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

61. “‘We aren’t poor,’ my mother said, again and again. ‘Because we’re rich in love.’”

-Cheryl Strayed.

62. “I remember being absolutely rocked to my core by how profoundly I could love another human being.”  

-Cheryl Strayed.

63. “Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

64. “Compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

65. “Be brave enough to break your own heart.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

66. “The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

Some inspiring quotes by Cheryl Strayed are given below.

67. “I considered my options. There was only one, I knew... To keep walking.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

68. “The people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

69. “You will learn a lot from yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

70. “You get to define the terms of your life.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

71. “Men’s stories are seen as universal, women’s as particular. What women are up against is the battle to not be marginalized.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

72. “There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the surface of me like a bruise.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

73. “Love isn’t the only thing that’s sometimes complicated and sometimes simple. Truth is sometimes that way too.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

74. “Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

75. “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

76. “I felt something growing in me that was strong and real.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

77. “The only way out of a hole is to climb out.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

78. “Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!”

-Cheryl Strayed.

79. “Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

80. “I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

81. “Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

Some quotes by Cheryl Strayed from her book, ‘Wild’ are given below. If you're looking for "feeling lost" quotes, you've come to the right place.

82. "The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back."

-Cheryl Strayed.

83. “How wild it was, to let it be.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

84. “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.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

85. “I had problems a therapist couldn't solve; grief that no man in a room could ameliorate.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

86. “I’d done it. it seemed like such a small thing and a tremendous thing at once, like a secret I’d always tell myself, though I didn’t know the meaning of it just yet.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

87. “That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

88. “He hadn’t loved me well in the end, but he’d loved me well when it mattered.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

89. “I was trapped by her, but utterly alone. She would always be the empty bowl that no one could fill. I'd have to fill it myself again and again and again.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

90. “Reading's my reward at the end of the day.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

91. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

-Cheryl Strayed.

92. “There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

93. “I didn't know how living outdoors and sleeping on the ground in a tent each night and walking alone through the wilderness all day almost every day had come to feel like my normal life, but it had. It was the idea of not doing it that scared me.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

94. “Nothing bad could happen to me, I thought. The worst thing already had.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

A list of quotes by Cheryl Strayed from her book 'Tiny Beautiful Things' is given below.

https://unsplash.com/photos/YLSwjSy7stw

(Cheryl Strayed's works also lend some brilliant advice on life.)

95. “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.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

96. “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.

97. “Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

98. “You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

99. “Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

100. “Forgiveness doesn't sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

101. “You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that's all.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

102. "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.

103. “Wanting to leave is enough.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

104. “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.”

-Cheryl Strayed.

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

-Cheryl Strayed.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 105 of the best Cheryl Strayed quotes from the essayist and author of 'Wild', then why not take a look at these [nature quotes] or wildflower quotes for more great quotes?

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