Cheryl Strayed Quotes

For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival. I was convinced that the woods were calling me. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by myself by the time I'm 25, I have failed.

I go to the wild mountains where I am responsible for myself. Step by step I am making sure that I don't die.

I do have a side of me that would just love to be stuck in the woods and have to stick it out and be really resourceful.

My three-year ride by horse from Mongolia to Hungary was the most difficult, most revealing, and interesting of any of my travels. Travelling by horse, you're far more engaged and dependent on the land and other people than by any other means.

My survival skills are very good for Hollywood. Beyond that, I'm not really sure.

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength

The rite of passage of learning to build a fire that will burn all night with one match is not an insignificant one in my husband's family, and I grew up camping and backpacking. I love to camp.

When I was 23, I went to Alaska by myself into the glaciers of the coast range and climbed a mountain by myself. It was incredibly reckless, incredibly stupid. But I was lucky. And I survived, and I came back to tell my story.

Just about every weekend when I was growing up, we would throw rods and rifles and tents and shovels and pickaxes into the back of the truck and then head off to the side of a mountain or the bottom of a canyon. Hiking, fishing, hunting, rock-hounding: this is how my parents passed the time.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

I've been camping and stuff, but if you left me in the woods I'd probably just curl up and cry until someone found me.

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Sometimes I just like the feeling of being a minority and seeing how far you can push yourself in extreme circumstances.

I'm a closet outdoorsy athletic enthusiast, and I would love to do a rafting and hiking trip someday and maybe sleep in a treehouse and bathe in a chilly winding river.

When I'm in 'Man vs. Wild' mode, it's not pleasure. Every sensor is firing and I'm on reserve power all the time and I'm digging deep - and that's the magic of it as well, and that's raw and it's great.

My best travelling experience lasted several years: between 1971 and 1974 when I bummed around the East. All I had with me was a cooking pot, a stove, a map and blankets and a couple of dhotis.

In Canada, I climbed some mountains with the Alpine Club of Canada, which taught me a lot about stamina.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn't think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

The rewards of the wild and the rewards of the survivor go to those who can dig deep, and, ultimately, to the guy who can stay alive.

Marathon running, for me, was the most controlled test of mettle that I could ever think of. It's you against Darwin.

What the SEAL teams do, what our training does, is it chips away the outer that layer and shows you what you're capable of and not capable of.

I'm a camper. I love being out in the wilderness.

I've learned how to function in chaos.

I have plenty of good people around me I can talk to and for me it's the man in the mirror that gives the answers if I have hard times or if I doubt.

I'm the guy that once graduated Ranger School - a place that starves you and denies you sleep for over two months - and took a fight six days later in the IFL and won.