Cheryl Strayed Quotes

I live and work alone and travel light, relying largely on my memory and making a point of letting intuition guide my way.

Astride a horse I am not, nor camel-like carry a load, Subjects I have none, nor follow any sultan's code; I worry not for what exists, nor fret for what is lost, I breathe with extreme ease, and live at very little cost.

When a man cuts himself absolutely adrift from custom, what an astonishingly light spar floats him! How few his wants are, after all!

you can survive only if nothing is necessary to you

I made these Sierra trips, carrying only a sackful of bread with a little tea and sugar, and was thus independent and free.

I'd gladly do without a valet. I'm never so well treated as when I'm without a valet.

Even when I was modelling, I never had a mom sitting on my head and a bunch of people waiting on me. I've always been independent. I'll do my thing and go.

My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

My childhood was bittersweet in many ways. We moved around a lot. By the time I was 10, I had travelled thousands of miles, often on my own. My parents were like my friends, so it felt like I didn't really have parents at all. But in a crazy way that was very liberating. It forced me to be independent, maybe a leader, and certainly a survivor.

Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it.

Home has always been wherever I am. I'm not very attached to walls - or people, for that matter - so I've always loved travelling around. A book in my back pocket, a diary, and a pen is all I need to call any place home.

People are probably going to realize they can live with a lot less government than what they thought they needed.

Never have anyone else carry your luggage. Pack only what you need.

If I'm free, it's because I'm always running.

You don't need money to be free. You can just say if you don't need stuff, you're always free.

When I was a student in the '60s, I dreamt of making a house 7 feet by 7 feet, as a dream of freedom, of self-moderation.

Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal... I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.

It's just like magic. When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are gone.

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

I guess becoming an adult and learning how to survive on your own is exciting.

I think there is a very powerful wish that we all have of being self-contained and having sort of opted out or choosing to remove ourselves from society and to have no ties and no obligations, and even no possessions. To be free in a particular way.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

I don't want to be any more interesting than I am. I love the life that I get to live, which is one of real independence and privacy and autonomy.

Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run.