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"Each night the black sky and the bright stars were my stunning companions; occasionally I'd see their beauty and solemnity so plainly that I'd realize in a piercing way that my mother was right. That someday I would be grateful and that in fact I was grateful now, that I felt something growing in me that was strong and real."
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"The best part waspulling down theshadesstuffing the doorbellwith ragsputting the phonein therefrigeratorand going to bedfor 3 or 4days. and the next bestpartwasnobody evermissedme."

"Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be."

"I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody."

"Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it."

"Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man."
Explore more quotes by Cheryl Strayed

"It was only when I rounded a bend and glimpsed the white peaks ahead that I doubled my abilities, only when I thought how far i had yet to go that i lost faith that I would get there."

"My mother's death put me in touch with my most savage self. As I've grown up and come to terms with her death and accepted it, the pieces of her that I keep don't exist materially."

"It had been so silent in the wake of that commotion, a kind of potent silence that seemed to contain everything. The songs of the birds and the creak of the trees. The dying snow and the unseen gurgling water. The glimmering sun. The certain sky. The gun that didn't have a bullet in its chamber. And the mother. Always the mother. The one who would never come to me."

"I suggest you forget about forgiveness for now and strive for acceptance instead. Accept that the man you love was unfaithful to you. Accept that the woman you once held in regard treated you with disrespect. Accept that their actions hurt you deeply. Accept that this experience taught you something you didn't want to know. Accept that sorrow and strife are a part of even a joyful life. Accept that it's going to take a long time for you to get that monster out of your chest. Accept that someday what pains you now will surely pain you less."

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

"It's hard to go. It's scary and lonely and half the time you'll be wondering why the hell you're in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires.But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful. It will open up your life."

"I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English and/or creative writing degree you'll say: ... Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters."

"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."

"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."

"But now that she was dying, I knew everything. My mother was in me already. Not just the parts of her that I knew, but the parts of her that had come before me too."
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