A Quote by Cheryl Strayed

It seemed to me the way it must feel to people who cut themselves on purpose. Not pretty, but clean. Not good, but void of regret. I was trying to heal. Trying to get the bad out of my system so I could be good again. To cure me of myself.
I fast every Sunday. I don’t eat anything. Just juices. […] It flushes out the system, cleans out the colon. I think that’s great. To really make it work, you have to do it properly. That’s the sewer valve of the system. You have to keep that clean like you clean the outside of your body. All these impurities come out of your system because you’re not clean inside. It comes out in pimples or disease or through big pores. Toxins trying to get out of your system. People should try to keep themselves clean.
Music feels like therapy, actually. A lot of people come out of a therapy session and feel like a weight has been lifted - I got it out, I cried, I feel good. I think for me this is just my way of doing that. It's the only avenue I have that fulfills that, that makes me feel good about myself. And I don't mean that in regards to the rewards, or like getting some good review. That's not what it's about. It's more about trying to please myself. It's really sick and weird.
It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.
I could have took the easy way and just been a cowboy, looking good, trying to make my money off Hank Williams and being this clean-cut guy. But I always wanted to be myself and go against the grain.
I have no interest in ever coming out. I’m just trying to make the pictures look good; I’m not into trying to make myself look good. And besides, it’s a pretty safe bet that the reality of me would be a crushing disappointment to a couple of 15-year-old kids out there.
I don't feel very good about myself. People always leave me. Nobody can stand me for very long. I wish I could cut my tongue out, or take out the part of my brain that has opinions. Or cares. I wish I could be simple. Be quiet, introverted, or shy. I'm half way in between a wallflower at a party and Elvis Presley. People love one or the other. In between is no place to be.
If I started drinking again, there would be a lot of people bringing me pot because I can't handle alcohol. I just am not a good drinker. I get a little alcohol in me and I start trying to change the world, and that's not good. A lot of people are the same way. So that's why I don't drink anymore.
I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good “I” who is going to improve the bad “me.” “I,” who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward “me,” and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently “I” will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make “me” behave so badly.
I do have a tendency to talk a lot at the poker table, which throws people off because they spend a lot of time trying to read me. But I talk a lot when I have a good hand and when I have a bad hand, too. Sometimes it annoys people so much they can't wait to get out of the tournament. And that can only be good for me.
I still feel I am that 14-year-old kid, hungry and trying to find a way through life. That's what I'm trying to develop, trying to be good at something through boxing. But I feel like that young kid who's trying and trying.
And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.
I was sheltered, and there's good and bad to that. The good was not getting into the drugs and the alcohol and the really sorry stuff, and the bad was finally coming out into the real world and trying to deal with it, which was hard for me.
If it's a good song and it fits me, that's what I'm going to do, I'm not out there trying to change the world. I'm just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can.
When people close to me die, I never feel bad for myself. I feel bad for them because they was good at living, and they don't get to do it no more.
I got about 6037 songs I wrote myself and I'm trying to get them on the market and I just wish people could hear them and stuff but they'll do pretty good.
What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.
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