Cheryl Strayed Quotes

I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. My life wasn't always peaches and roses. Where I am today is through a belief in hard work and never saying no.

You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me.

When I was young, a lot of things were closed off to me. I was always told, 'Don't do this, you can't do that' - instead of stopping me, it made me think, 'I can do that, I must do that.'

In my life I had no other choice than to become a strong person.

She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hairbrush and told, "There you go." -- Willing

The road to success, for me, was a long and arduous journey, strewn with obstacles and traps, pitfalls and hurdles-all created by myself. Painful as it is, I speak of those sad and frustrating times whenever I am invited to address sales gatherings, corporate conventions, and success rallies, in the hope that my personal experiences will serve as sufficient evidence for all who hear me that they have it in their own power to make their lives as glorious or as terrible as they choose.

Everywhere man is confronted with fate , with a chance of achieving something through his own suffering.

I wasn't concerned about the hardships because I always felt I was doing what I had to do, what I wanted to do and what I was destined to do.

There are really only two ways to approach life - as victim or as gallant fighter - and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.

All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind, you'll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.

Success requires no explanations. Failure permits no alibis.

It takes a lot of spine and stomach to make yourself into something when no one gives you a foundation.

Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

I've always been pretty independent, no matter what situation: good, bad, ugly, happy, sad. I dig deep, and I get over it.

Whenever there is a big difficulty, I don't make excuses. Instead, I say I will solve it even if everybody leaves.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

Nothing has been handed to me my entire life. You have to go there and take it. My mom taught me that.

I'm never going to stop believing in myself.

I've never, ever tried to make life easy for myself.

This is my journey. If I fall, I have to pick myself up. If I'm not getting the playing time I want, it's up to me to figure out why.

I grew up working hard to earn everything I had.

To me, I'll always be the skinny, 5-foot-6 eighth-grader on the YMCA court, trying to get grown men to choose me for pickup games. It wasn't always easy. And that's what drives me.