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Quote by Cheryl Strayed

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Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

This book features a series of essays that address a wide range of life's challenges, providing thoughtful and compassionate guidance on love, relationships, and personal growth. more

Author

Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed is an American author who gained fame with her memoir 'Wild', which tells the story of her solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. The novel, which was later adapted into a film, has been praised for its profound personal narrative and exploration of themes of female self-discovery. Her work has been celebrated for its deep personal storytelling and exploration of themes of female self-discovery. more

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“She couldn't see the homemade colored sprinkles, the tender yellow cake, or the pale pink frosting made with strawberry syrup enhanced with a little rosewater. Although our local strawberries weren't in season yet, I had conjured the aroma and taste of juicy berries warmed by the sun. I hoped this flavor would help the two old people return once more to their youth and the carefree feeling of a summer day.”

“A cookie, Avis told her children, is a soul. She held up the wafer, its edges shimmering with ruby-dark sugar. "You think it looks like a tiny thing, right? Just a little nothing. But then you take a bite." Four-year-old Felice lifted her face. Avis fanned her daughter's eyes closed with her fingertips and placed it in Felice's mouth. Felice opened her sheer eyes. Lamb slid his orange length against her ankles. Avis handed a cookie to eight-year-old Stanley, who held it up to his nose. "Does that taste good?" she asked. Felice nodded and opened her mouth again. "It smells like flowers," Stanley said. "Yes." Avis paused, a cookie balanced on her spatula. "That's the rosewater. Good palate, darling." "Mermaids eat roses," Felice said. "Then they melt.”

“After showering I like one of the oldest concoctions in the world—rosewater and glycerin. I once asked a lovely lady in her eighties how she kept the skin of a baby, and that was what she used. I carry around little tubes of rosewater and glycerin to use on my hands EVERY TIME I WASH THEM, and I always work it up my arms and into my elbows. Women hardly ever look at their own elbows, but other people do! I pay attention to my knees and ankles, too. All the joints seem to dry out faster than the fleshy parts of the body.”

“I arrive back at my lodgings to a battered-tin dish of dried apricots in syrup. Small and plump, round rather than oval, and freckled with rust. I dip a spoon into the syrup, a pretty spoon battered and bent from years of service, and sip the heavily chilled, sweet liquor. Lighter than that used to soak gulab jamun, the heavy, sticky balls of dough I have consumed with nothing short of gluttony on this trip, but thinner and less cloying and with the faintest breath of rosewater. I sit in peace on the cool veranda with my tin dish of apricots like dumpy cherubs and with the dry citrus dust of ground ginger still in my hair.”

“The fruits scorch in the fierce heat. The smell of plum jam fills the kitchen. Flesh bubbles, edges blacken, plum juices burst from their skins and mingle with the honey and lemon. Twenty minutes later they emerge, collapsed in a pool of deepest purple-red. I twist the lid from a bottle of rosewater, hand-made, no label, and shake drops over the scorched fruit. A scent of rose, sweet fruit and honey. We let the fruit rest for ten minutes. The roasted plums are served on an old tin dish, a mound of salted labneh at their side, the juices seeping into the soft, thick yoghurt like lipstick into a pantomime dame's pancake make-up. I rain a pinch of dried rose petals over the surface and offer them up. We spoon the soft fruit and labneh into our mouths, then lift the dishes to our lips to drink the last drop of rose-perfumed juice.”

“Life isn’t meant to be lived perfectly…but merely to be LIVED. Boldly, wildly, beautifully, uncertainly, imperfectly, magically LIVED.”