Cheryl Strayed Quotes

The tragedy of life is not that man loses but that he almost wins.

His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

The moment had passed, the door between the lives we could have led and the lives we led had shut in our faces.

How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.

Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.

Hope and wishes for all that delights will sour in the midst of action not taken and words unsaid.

We do not ask the right questions when we are young, so we miss the important answers. Now it is too late to ask, too late for the illuminating answers, and the unanswered questions haunt us for a lifetime.

It's always so early in here, before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. Thank you for this life! Still I miss the alternatives. The sketches, all of them, want to become real.

It's defeatist to harp on what might have been, and yet, it's hard to resist considering what might have been.

We all feel wistfulness or regret about roads not taken.

I could have joined West Brom or Brighton. What would have happened had I joined one of them? I do not want to think about it. I do not think about it.

We often experience more regret over the part we have left, than pleasure over the part we have preferred.

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs.

She had lived her early years as though she were waiting for something she might, but never did, become.

I think of all the choices I never knew. And those I let be made for me - to please, from fear, for love. Where did they disappear to, those choices that I never made? They are all part of who I am. They are the legacy I leave behind, they are the finished portrait of myself I cannot change.

hen Baillie [Walsh, writer and director] wrote the movie for me I wasn't doing what I'm doing today, so when we actually came to make the movie it seemed silly to change it. But who knows? That's the way things go. What was interesting for me - and what was always interesting in the script - was that you've got someone who appears to have everything, or at least has the opportunity to have everything, and he's f**ked it up, or lost it.

We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.

It's the things you don't do, not the things you do, you feel most sorry for.

Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be.

Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

But lost chances are as much a part of life as chances taken, and a story cannot dwell on what might have been.

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

The future is just wasted on some people.

Tired faith all worn and thin, for all we could have done, and all that could have been.

Caroline Waverly: Sometimes we hurt more for what might have been than for what is.