Rachel Friedman Quotes & Sayings

I've found it freeing these last few months to let go of some insecurities, large and small, or at least to put them on hold. One — Rachel Friedman

Who you are when you are tested might not be pretty, but it's always real. — Rachel Friedman

It's exciting to fit somewhere when I have felt out of place everywhere for so long. — Rachel Friedman

That summer, maybe for the first time in my life, I existed wholly in the present moment, which is one of the liberating things about traveling to a place where no one knows you. I had no past or future, which suited me perfectly, since I did not wish to reckon with either. — Rachel Friedman

These Aussie girls are free to set their own courses in the world, to meander and experiment. Their travels are not bumps along the road - they are life itself. See the world and then come home and decide who you want to be in it, not the other way around, as seems the general trajectory in the U.S. — Rachel Friedman

Whenever you're traveling, you have these thoughts of home. At what point will you have been away so long that it will no longer be recognizable - or you won't be? — Rachel Friedman

Should you do what you love, what's outrageous and unpredictable, and worry about the future later, or plug away at a steady job first and go off and have your fun when you retire? In — Rachel Friedman

Whispering voice inside my head growing louder, my voice - not those of my parents or teachers or Carly or Muriel, even - telling me to live my life without fear or worry or doubt that nothing was going according to plan, as though such a plan ever existed in the first place. — Rachel Friedman

Writing has always been a way for me to make sense of the world, even if the most important changes happening to me abroad - many of which are imperceptible until years later - are nowhere to be found on those pages. My — Rachel Friedman

For as long as I can remember, I have disappointed her, so I have put a wall between us in an effort to protect myself. — Rachel Friedman

Maybe this is what travel gives you - or gives you back, in most cases - that childlike sense of wonder, and with it a kidstyle openness where you want to finger-paint with anyone and everyone who shows — Rachel Friedman

We are in love, in the very beginning part of it, when you don't ever want to separate your body from the other person's. — Rachel Friedman

It's as difficult to describe the sea as it is a piece of music. — Rachel Friedman

She is confident and nonchalant in equal proportion to my paralyzing self-consciousness. — Rachel Friedman

Even with the coffee, I'm never fully awake, just jittery. — Rachel Friedman

I started to cry, but no one could tell because it was dark and pouring. — Rachel Friedman

The geographies of our childhoods don't quite suit either of us, something we have in common. — Rachel Friedman

...being a weatherman in Ireland is about the biggest scam going. — Rachel Friedman

My mom says, "Just keep in mind when you're choosing a career - money doesn't solve everything, but it sure makes life easier." I — Rachel Friedman

Before, some places just seemed too far, too difficult to reach, but once you start traveling, you never want to stop. You want to hear other people's stories, see where they live, eat their food. You realize
and of course it's a cliche, but like many cliches, it's true
the way we are all interconnected. — Rachel Friedman

Backpacking has noble ideals: to see how the locals live, to interact with them, to be respectful and blend in as much as possible. Backpackers want to learn, we want to understand the worlds we have entered, not simply consume them. — Rachel Friedman

All along I've thought the best way to keep out all the voices in my head directing my life this way and that was to stay busy, to distract my brain from itself, but it's this profound silence that releases me from worry. — Rachel Friedman

With Martyn, I hold forth some of the philosophies I've been honing since beginning my travels in Ireland almost two years ago, about universal health care and the travel practices of American youth, about my country and the way I was indoctrinated to believe that America was number one in everything, but actually people in other countries have what we have
and sometimes better
about my obligations as a daughter, about the ways that I have put my faith in all the wrong things and now I am hopelessly lost but at the same time realizing that's okay so maybe that means I'm not lost at all, just searching. — Rachel Friedman

What happens when we lose the things that anchor us? What if, instead of grasping at something to hold on to, we pull up our roots and walk away? Instead of trying to find the way back, we walk deeper and deeper into the woods, willing ourselves to get lost. In this place where nothing is recognizable. not the people or the language or the food, we are truly on our own. Eventually, we find ourselves unencumbered by the past or the future. Here is a fleeting glimpse of our truest self, our self in the present moment. — Rachel Friedman

See the world and then come home and decide who you want to be in it, — Rachel Friedman

Even the homes we leave on purpose, the families we break away from to be ourselves or someone else, call us back again and again, to a place that has long since ceased to be home yet still holds power over us. — Rachel Friedman

What I found on the road was a tiny piece of myself, the one I kept unknowingly shuttered for so long in order to play the many roles I thought were mine. — Rachel Friedman

At this point in my travels and in my life, I still regard changing course as a personal failing. I don't yet have the hindsight to realize that some places don't fit quite right, for whatever reason, so sometimes it's best to cash in your chips and give it a go somewhere new, even if a mere twenty-four hours before you didn't even know that place existed. — Rachel Friedman

I imagine the people whose lives are most intertwined with mine, and I realize life has gone on without me. The planet has not imploded because I, the girl who has always done what is expected of her, decided not to, just this once. — Rachel Friedman