15 Empowering Quotes From Glennon Doyle's Untamed That Will Speak to Your Soul

By Kristin Harris
Glennon Doyle
Amy Paulson
Glennon Doyle
Amy Paulson

I've never been one to believe in coincidences or serendipity, but Glennon Doyle's new book came into my life at just the right time. The bestselling author's highly anticipated third memoir, Untamed — a book about being brave — was released amid the start of a global pandemic, and, for me, on the heels of a life-shattering heartbreak.

With her latest book, Doyle's raw, empowering words remind you that each and every one of your feelings is valid, and teaches you how to unapologetically be yourself — especially when the world tries to convince you not to. It's the kind of writing that feels like the author dug deep down into the swirling feelings and thoughts floating around inside you, and translated that into a story where every page reaffirms who you are at your very core.

As a book that teaches you how to truly find and trust yourself, be brave, and live your life untamed, it's naturally filled with endless profound quotes that are so perfect, you'll probably want to frame them all over your walls. Keep reading for 15 empowering quotes that'll energize you to be your authentic self, and just might help you change your life.

  • "I see your fear, and it's big. I also see your courage, and it's bigger. We can do hard things."
  • "This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they've never been."
  • "When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself."
  • "You're not doing life wrong; you're doing it right. If there's any secret you're missing, it's that doing it right is just really hard. Feeling all your feelings is hard, but that's what they're for. Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even the hard ones. The secret is that you're doing it right, and that doing it right hurts sometimes."
  • "Perhaps imagination is not where we go to escape reality but where we go to remember it."
  • "I wondered if joy had as much to teach me as pain did. If so, I wanted to know."
  • "I can feel everything and survive. What I thought would kill me, didn't. Every time I said to myself: I can't take this anymore — I was wrong. The truth was that I could and did take it all — and I kept surviving. Surviving again and again made me less afraid of myself, of other people, of life. I learned that I'd never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough."
  • "The truest, most beautiful life never promises to be an easy one. We need to let go of the lie that it's supposed to be."
  • "What scares me more than feeling it all, is missing it all."
  • "If you are uncomfortable — in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused — you don't have a problem, you have a life. Being human is not hard because you're doing it wrong, it's hard because you're doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy."
  • "The most revolutionary thing a woman can do: the next right thing, one thing at a time, without asking permission or offering explanation."
  • "Trusting people is terrifying. Maybe if love is not a little scary and out of our control, then it is not love at all."
  • "The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that there was something wrong with me. I quit spending my life trying to control myself and began to trust myself."
  • "The braver I am, the luckier I get."
  • "In my thirties, I learned that there is a type of pain in life that I want to feel. It's the inevitable, excruciating, necessary pain of losing beautiful things: trust, dreams, health, animals, relationships, people. This kind of pain is the price of love, the cost of living a brave, openhearted life — and I'll pay it. There is another kind of pain that comes not from losing beautiful things but from never even trying for them."