Cheryl Strayed Quotes

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

I made a commitment to myself that I'd stick at this and not let weakness in too quickly, that I'd do the best shows I could and make the best songs I can make.

But you finally think, there is what there is, and you have to work within those confines and just keep chipping away at your own work.

A book, while it is being written, has an intense life of its own which you share.

That's all you have to ask from yourself writing a book. That it's the best you can do and that you did it without any ego involved and that you did it for somebody else. That's the best you can do.

Writing is grunt work - you need to have self-motivation, perseverance, and faith... talent is the smallest part of it.

Remember that all success is based on long-term commitment, faith, discipline, attitude and a few stepping stones along the way.

In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.

Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell or that story to tell, but I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living.

I remember as a young child, during one of my frequent trips to the local library, spending hours looking at book after book trying in vain to find one that had my name on it. Because there were so many books in the library, with so many different names on them, I’d assumed that one of them — somewhere — had to be mine. I didn’t understand at the time that a person’s name appears on a book because he or she wrote it. Now that I’m twenty-six I know better. If I were ever going to find my book one day, I was going to have to write it.

The book [ One Thousand Gifts] took just over a year to write, on the fringe hours, early and late, around home educating 6 kids and farming and blogging. And I wonder if the greatest challenges was to keep pressing into it when I had never been here before. I felt like Abraham - being called to something that he didn't know how to get to.

I complain a lot. That's one way of coping. But I'm in a profession where nobody tells you to quit. No board of other partners tells you it's time to get your gold watch, and no physical claim is made on you like an athlete or an actress. So I try to plug along on the theory that I can still do it. I still keep trying to produce prose, and some poetry, in the hope that I can find something to say about being alive, this country, but generally the human condition.

A writer never finds the time to write. A writer makes it. If you don't have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world, and you aren't going to finish a book.

You are not going to be perfect every day. It's about turning up the next day and doing it again.

I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to, even if you, you know, are going to have to go without a cup of coffee or even a meal, that that should nourish you.

Never permit failure to become a habit.

One of the most important things that teachers teach students is you, you can work harder. You are mentally tougher than you think.

I keep pushing buttons and trying to grow as a person and as a filmmaker.

As a writer, you need a strong sense of self-belief. And when it comes to writing, I've always had that.

It doesn't matter what you're trying to accomplish. It's all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets.

I accept challenges, I have always done that in writing.

Never stop fighting until you arrive at your destined place - that is, the unique you. Have an aim in life, continuously acquire knowledge, work hard, and have perseverance to realise the great life.

Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.