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 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.
enough
Wanting to leave is enough.
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.
what-if done made
What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?
fun adventure writing
A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.
art bears anecdotes
Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.
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