My Favorite Quotes from Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things
I’d seen this book recommended several times on social media, particularly through Myleik Teele who is someone I’ve followed on Instagram for years. I finally picked it up and read it in 2022, and honestly can’t write all my favorite quotes from this book, there were just too many. But here are some of my favorites from essays That Ecstatic Parade, The Reckoning, There’s a Bundle on Your Head, and Write Like a Motherfucker.
You mustn’t live with people who wish to annihilate you. Even if you love them. Even if they are your mom and dad. You’re an adult now. Figure out how to pay the rent. Your psychological well being is more important than free access to a car. ~ That Ecstatic Parade, Page 32
If you don’t find a place to put those feelings, you may not be able to keep yourself from putting them on your child. ~ The Reckoning, Page 43
Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true. ~ There’s a Bundle on Your Head, Page 52
When I was done writing it, I understood that things happened just as they were meant to. That I couldn’t have written my book before I did. I simply wasn’t capable of doing so, either as a writer or a person. To get to the point I had to get to write my first book, I had to do everything I did in my twenties. I had to write sentences that never turned into anything, and stories that never miraculously formed into a novel. I had to read voraciously and compose exhaustive entries in my journals. I had to waste time and grieve my mother and come to terms with my childhood and have stupid and sweet and scandalous sexual relationships and grow up. ~ Write Like a Motherfucker, Page 56-57
The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there’s arrogance at it’s core. It presumes you should be successful at twenty-six, when it really takes most writers so much longer to get there. ~ Write Like a Motherfucker, Page 58
We get the work done on the ground level. And the kindest thing I can do for you is to tell you to get your ass on the floor. I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to. The only way you’ll find out if you “have it in you” is to get to work and see if you do. The only way to override your “limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude” is to produce. You have limitations. You are in some ways inept. This is true of every writer, and it’s especially true of writers who are twenty-six. You will feel insecure and jealous. How much power you give those feelings is up to you. ~ Write Like a Motherfucker, Page 58
