The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.
Cheryl StrayedThe fatherโs job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when itโs necessary to do so. If you donโt get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.
Cheryl StrayedGoing down (descending), I realized, was like taking hold of the loose strand of yard on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost.
Cheryl StrayedEach evening, I ached for the shelter of my tent, for the smallest sense that something was shielding me from the entire rest of the world, keeping me safe not from danger, but from vastness itself. I loved the dim, clammy dark of my tent, the cozy familiarity of the way I arranged my few belongings all around me each night.
Cheryl StrayedYour assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naรฏve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.
Cheryl Strayed