524 Quotes by Cheryl Strayed

What if I forgave myself? What if I forgave myself even though I’d done some things I shouldn’t have? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything different from what I’d done? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if all those things I shouldn’t have done were what got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

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.

Most of the people I met on the PCT passed only briefly through my life, but I was enriched by each of them. They made me laugh they made me think, they made me go on another day, and most of all, they made me trust entirely in the kindness of strangers.

Perhaps being among the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I, too, could be undesecrated... the wilderness had a clarity that included me.

You did things you didn’t hope to do. You have not always been your best self. This means that you’re like the rest of us.

Stop asking yourself what you want, what you desire, what interests you. Ask yourself instead: What has been given to me? Ask: What do I have to give back? Then give it.

Be present for your own life.

Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding.

If you had to give one piece of advice to people in their twenties, what would it be? To go to a bookstore and buy ten books of poetry and read them each five times. Why? Because the truth is inside.