Many of us recognize Cheryl Strayed’s name on the cover of her most popular book turned movie, Wild, the memoir that highlights her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild became a New York Times No. 1 Best Seller and soon, Strayed was making appearances regarding her fabulous memoir all over the country. Wild is what Strayed is known for, however she has published other types of writing that are equally, if not more, magnificent.

A few years after Wild hit the stands, the movie came out, and I watched and re-watched the journey of then 26-year-old Strayed documented. After becoming obsessed with this story, I discovered everything there was known to the public about this fantastic memoirist, a few years later, I am still guilty of having the biggest writer/girl crush on Cheryl Strayed.

Her essay “The Love Of My Life,” published in The Sun Magazine in 2012, expresses Strayed’s difficultly dealing with the grief of her mother’s passing, which happened four years before she made her trek on the PCT. She explores difficult topics, like cheating on her husband, detailed sexual interactions, dark feelings about sadness, depression and living life to its fullest. It is deep, it is intense; it is raw, real, and beautiful, and one of my favorite pieces of writing.

Strayed also revealed herself as the anonymous advice columnist “Sugar” in the Dear Sugar column on the website, Rumpus. She had no experience in advice-giving, but somehow managed to write on mothering, drug addiction, jealousy and all other aspects of life. In an interview with The New Yorker, Strayed comments about her experience as “Sugar,” “Sugar always tells people to trust their gut, so you could say from the very beginning, I was taking my own advice. I’m glad I did.”

Strayed attacks life unapologetically. She says “This is me. Here I am. Deal with it.” She is honest and writes on topics that people may be afraid to write about, or even talk about.

My own personal favorite publication of Strayed’s is another form of advice, you may say. Her collection of quotes in Brave Enough, inspires me each and every day. Her snippets are witty, realistic and true about what life has to offer, especially in your 20s. It has become my bible, and there is something in this little green book that can motivate, inspire, and resonate with everyone.

Here are eleven of my absolute favorite quotes from Brave Enough, and eleven reasons why we should all aspire to live our lives by the words of Cheryl Strayed:

1. My advice to my adolescent self? You know who you are, so let yourself be her now. It’s okay to be smart and ambitious and curious and not terribly cool. Don’t waste all those years trying to get the boys to want you and the girls to like you. Don’t starve yourself skinny. Don’t be a pretty cheerleader. Don’t lose your virginity to the captain of the football team. Don’t lose anything to him. Be the captain. You are the captain. Take the ball and run.
2. Eight of the ten things you have decided about yourself at the age of twenty will, over time, prove to be false. The other two things will prove to be so true that you’ll look back in twenty years and howl.
3. You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. You go on by being true. You go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. You go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and by allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.
4. Do not reach the era of child-rearing and real jobs with a guitar case full of crushing regret for all the things you wished you’d done in your youth. People who didn’t do those things risk becoming mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions of the people they intended to be.
5. Stop asking yourself what you want, what you desire, what interests you. Ask yourself instead: What has been given to me. Ask: What do I have to give back? Then give it.
6. Hello, fear. Thank you for being here. You’re my indication that I’m doing what I need to do.
7. How wild it was, to let it be.
8. Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or, rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this.
9. There are stories hidden in the language we use, whether we’re conscious of them or not. They tell the truth of our hearts and minds.
10. Vulnerability is strength.
11. You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.