Every day at about four o'clock, I would go up to a farmhouse - or whatever kind of house was around - and knock on the door and say, "Hi, I'm biking across Canada, and I'm wondering if I could pitch my tent on your land." And sometimes people slammed the door in my face, but the vast majority of the time they said, "Of course," and then they said, "Come for dinner," and then they packed me food the next day and fed me breakfast and sometimes they got out the bottle of wine they'd been saving for a special occasion.

There was something about the prairie for me—it wasn’t where I had come from, but when I moved there it just took me in and I knew I couldn’t ever stop living under that big sky.

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story.

I write really well on the road.

My parents were travelers. Every time my parents got ten dollars ahead they went somewhere. That's what they did. So I got the bug from them.

For me, the shaping of the story is more important than accuracy.

Cheryl Strayed is a courageous, gritty, and deceptively elegant writer.