Quote

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.

Cheryl Strayed

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Cheryl Strayed
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 17
Blogger
Essayist
Feminist
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Spangler
Pennsylvania
Way
Pretty
Void
Good
System
Cure
People
Purpose
Cures
Inspirational
Heal
Feel
Seemed
Must
Regret
Feels
Clean
Trying
Cutting

More quotes by Cheryl Strayed

Image
...the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
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. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
I write to find what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
There is a path toward the light. The one that goes blink, blink, blink inside your chest when you know what you're doing is right. Listen to it. Trust it. Let it make you stronger than you are.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
There isn't a thing to eat down there in the rabbit hole of your bitterness except your own desperate heart.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
Writing is such a strangely and radically private act, and yet its purpose is this great sense of connection and community. I mean, I wanted people to love the book. And the only way to get them to love it is to try to make it good for them. So of course the audience has to be considered.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
You will learn a lot about 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
Image
I felt something growing in me that was strong and real.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
People do support themselves as artists and writers, so there's no need to be all doom and gloom about it. You just have to push forward. You have to follow your vision and hope for the best. You have to write for love.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
The place of true healing is a fierce place. It's a giant place. it's a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
...the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary—is having been nailed to the cross.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
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.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
She tried to think of what to say to make it all better again, or at least the way it was before she'd made her confession, though she didn't regret having confessed. Perhaps that was what had been wrong with her all along. Now that the lie wasn't between them anymore, maybe she could love him again.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
One of the scandalous things I did was as I read them afterward I would burn them. I loved them, but for practical reasons I had to lighten the load. I burned favorites, like William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. There's a whole list in the back of my book. It's me,[Adolf] Hitler, [Benito] Mussolini, and Pol Pot. We're the book burners.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
It's a long life, sweetheart, and time heals all wounds.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
When going on a date with someone they met online, the number-one fear that straight women have is going on a date with a serial killer. The number-one fear straight men have is going on a date with a fat woman. That says everything.
Cheryl Strayed
Image
Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.
Cheryl Strayed