And every last one of us can do better than give up. Cheryl Strayed More Quotes by Cheryl Strayed More Quotes From Cheryl Strayed I actually don't have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn't prepared for is the part you can't prepare for. Cheryl Strayed reading mistake thinking It's funny, it never occurred to me that a movie star would play me. But now that she [Reese Witherspoon] is playing me, it's like, of course, it couldn't be anyone else! I don't know if you've seen pictures of Reese and me and Reese and my daughter Bobbi, who's named after my mother, and also plays me. There's a kind of resemblance. Cheryl Strayed daughter stars mother You have to keep walking, no matter what. If you don't, it's a living death. You're just standing in one place dying. Cheryl Strayed what-if dying matter My mom died when I was 22. My stepfather, who I loved like a father, pretty quickly got involved with another woman. Suddenly there was another woman sleeping in my mother's bed, and it was very difficult. Their relationship brought up my profound loss, and the truth was that my family would never be the same again. Cheryl Strayed mom mother father I think being a woman alone enhanced the impulse in others to be generous. What we're told is that to be a woman alone is to be in a dangerous situation. The message is that people are gong to prey on you and do bad things to you. That may be true in some cases, but what I experienced was the other case. Cheryl Strayed dangerous-situations people thinking When someone you love truly dies, you have to find them over and over again in the world, and I think you do that on a very psychic, unconscious level, and I think in some ways I was calling out to that spirit of my mother when I saw the fox. It doesn't surprise me it's in animals that I find my mother. Cheryl Strayed mother animal thinking If you want to read anything nasty about me, just go to the backpacker websites. There's this kind of elitist branch where they really believe that I had no business going backpacking. Cheryl Strayed branches want believe I'm reading George Saunders's story collection, "Tenth of December." He was my mentor at the University of Syracuse. The stories are mind-blowing like everyone says. Cheryl Strayed mentor mind-blowing reading Obviously memoir is subjective truth: It is my memory, my perspective, that's the beauty. But I still wanted to be as factual as I could. Cheryl Strayed memoir perspective memories My family didn't go to church. Once when I slept over at the house of a friend, her parents brought me to Sunday school with her. I was given this little pamphlet of tiny poems about the natural world, about butterflies and sunsets. My 7-year-old self was so astounded by how these few words were creating pictures and feelings in me. Cheryl Strayed sunset butterfly school I really came to literature through poetry. Cheryl Strayed literature 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 lists dying book A few times a year I'll remember that I love old literature, too. Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" is one of my 10 favorite books. I have to go out of my way to remember to pick up a book like that, but when I do I'm blown away by how very relevant it still is. Cheryl Strayed literature book years I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her. My whole life sort of ended when my mom died. I had to remake it again and be a new person in the world without my mom. It was a very primal rebirth, that time after my mom died. Cheryl Strayed mom mother grieving Music. I could not go without that. My mind would not let me be without music. I hiked the trail in 1995 - before there were iPods or music on our cell phones or even cell phones. So I was truly out there with just my thoughts. After a few days there was a continuous loop of songs playing silently in my mind. Cheryl Strayed phones cells song So on one hand, because the wilderness was familiar to me, it really helped me be brave. But it still was scary sometimes. I had to say to myself: "Chances are, you're not going to be mauled by a bear." Cheryl Strayed scary brave hands Sometimes people will decide that I have written this book about my wild behavior in my twenties and Reese is America's sweetheart and they want to put us in opposition to each other, and we laugh about that. Cheryl Strayed entertainment
