You don't have to be smart to act — look at the outgoing president of the United States. - Cheryl Strayed

God is not a granter of wishes. God is a ruthless bitch.

when we identify with what another has said or written, we use those words as an articulation of our own inner voices, not only as a celebration of theirs.

Foot speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world than my normal modes of travel. Miles weren’t things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate straggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched. They were the sound of my breath and my feet hitting the trail one step at a time and the click of my ski pole. The PCT had taught me what a mile was. I was humble before each and every one.