What if you allowed your God to exist in the simply words of compassion others offer you? ... What if the greatest beauty of the day is the shaft of sunlight through our window? What if the worst thing happened and you rose anyway? What if you trusted in the human scale? What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering more than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?

— Cheryl Strayed

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

When you recognize that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them, that you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them, that you will hold the empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them?THE WORD FOR THAT IS HEALING.

— Cheryl Strayed

When you’re speaking in the truest, most intimate voice about your life, you are speaking with the universal voice.

— Cheryl Strayed

Within forty minutes, the voice inside my head was screaming, WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO? I tried to ignore it, to hum as I hiked, though humming proved too difficult to do while also panting and moaning in agony and trying to remain hunched in that remotely upright position while also propelling myself forward when I felt like a building with legs.

— Cheryl Strayed

Write like a motherfucker.

— Cheryl Strayed

You don't have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don't have to explain what you plan to do with your life. Furthermore, you don't have to justify our education by demonstrating its financial rewards. Furthermore, you don't have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. Furthermore, you have to give it all you've got. Furthermore, you have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that's all.

— Cheryl Strayed

You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. Furthermore, you don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. Furthermore, you don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your electric bill. You have to be kind. Furthermore, you have to give it all you got. Furthermore, you have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.

— Cheryl Strayed

You don't have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don't have to explain what your plan to do with your life. Furthermore, you don't have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. Furthermore, you don't have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history of economics or science or the arts.

— Cheryl Strayed

You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. Furthermore, you go on by being true. Furthermore, you go on by offering comfort to others who can't go on. Furthermore, you go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days. Furthermore, you go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.

— Cheryl Strayed