saw the power of the darkness. Saw that, in fact, I had strayed and that I was a stray and that from the wild places my straying had brought me, I kn… - Cheryl Strayed

The bull, I acknowledged grimly, could be in either direction, since I hadn’t seen where he’d run once I closed my eyes. I could only choose between the bull that would take me back and the bull that would take me forward.

And you’re wounded in the same place. That’s what fathers do if they don’t heal their wounds. They wound their children in the same place.

We are obligated to the people we care about and who we allow to care about us, whether we say we love them or not. Our main obligation is to be forthright — to elucidate the nature of our affection when such elucidation would be meaningful or clarifying.