Quotessence
Home / Authors / Augusten Burroughs
Augusten Burroughs

Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleThinkingWritingPersonsWayFeelsKnowsHappensWant

Famous Augusten Burroughs Quotes

“Most everybody had made at least one bad, drunken decision in their lives. Called an ex at two in the morning. Or perhaps has a little too much to drink on a second date and wept inconsolably while revealing how simply damaged one was, while nonetheless retaining an uncommonly large capacity for love. That kind of thing was, while regrettable, at least comprehensible. But waking up with someone generationally inappropriate, like your grandfather's best buddy?”

KindLittlesMadeTwoDecisionMorningToo MuchDrinkCapacityWake UpWakingGrandfatherExesRevealingBuddyInappropriateRetainingBest Buddies
Book:You Better Not Cry: True Stories for Christmas
Create image

“Acceptance, when it comes, arrives in waves: Listen with your chest. You will feel a pendulum swing within you, favoring one direction or another. And that is your answer. The answer is always inside your chest. The right choice weighs more. That's how you know. It causes you to lean in its direction.”

KnowsFeelsChoicesCausesAnswersAcceptanceWaveChestsSwingsWithin YouOne DirectionRight ChoicesPendulums
Book:You Better Not Cry: True Stories for Christmas
Create image

“Dennis looked at the puppy in the window. We both did. It was the oddest thing. Normally, puppies in pet store windows sleep or pee or roll around on top of other dogs. This one ignored us its window-mates and was instead sitting with its nose pressed against the glass, looking at us with an extremely serious little expression on its face. An expression that seemed to me to be saying, "I am a sacred cow. Get out your wallet.”

LittlesFacesSleepDogSeriousExpressionSittingWindowSacredGlassesStoresNosesPetMatesCowsIgnoredPuppyWalletsSacred Cows
Book:Possible Side Effects
Create image

“What I really want is to sit next to someone under an L.L. bean blanket on the beach in the fall and drink coffee from the same mug. I don't want some rusty '73 Ford Pinto with a factory-defective gas tank that causes it to explode when it's rear-ended in the parking lot of the supermarket. So why do I keep looking for Pintos?”

WantFallNextCausesDrinkCoffeeBeachGasFactoriesTanksBlanketBeansParkingSupermarketsDefectiveParking LotMug
Author:Augusten Burroughs
Create image

“As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?”

WorldChildrenLittlesYoungGirlFatherHouseJesusCrossesAngryJust OneSantaDollsCokeYoung ChildrenPepsi
Book:You Better Not Cry: True Stories for Christmas
Create image

“But then, look at me. My brain is incorrectly formed, and I'm shaped like a tube. Plus, I'm an alcoholic, a "survivor" of childhood sexual abuse, was raised in a cult and have no education. So, really, if you think about it, the only thing that separates me from the guy with the stinky foot and no teeth is a book deal and some cologne.”

IfsThinkingLooksBookGuyDealsBrainFeetChildhoodAbuseRaisedTeethPlusSurvivorCultLook At MeAlcoholicsTubesCologneStinky
Book:Magical Thinking
Create image

“I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I’m shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear. I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that’s all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I’m going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I’m writing and will have a record of the anxiety.”

IfsWayNeedsWritingBigsDifficultWorryClearRecordsDyingPaperAnxietyUnderstoodComplicatedSmokingReverseDifficult ThingsShutting Down
Book:Possible Side Effects
Create image

“The past does not haunt us. We haunt the past. We allow our minds to focus in that direction. We open memories and examine them. We reexperience emotions we felt during the painful events we experienced because we are recalling them in as much detail as we can.”

MindDoePastFeltMemoriesEmotionFocusEventsPainfulDetails
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
Create image

“You need to grab your dream out of the sky like it's a kite and pinch the string through your fingers until you reach the spool.”

NeedsDreamSkyFingersYour DreamsStringsFollow Your DreamsChase Your DreamsKitesLiving The DreamPinching
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
Create image

“This is how you survive the unsurvivable, this is how you lose that which you cannot bear to lose, this is how you reinvent yourself, overcome your abusers, fulfill your ambitions and meet the love of your life: by following what is true, no matter where it leads you.”

MatterLosesBearsAmbitionOvercomingFollowingAbusersLove Your LifeReinventing Yourself
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
Create image

“I don't believe in the concept of a soul mate. Because we are all unique, but we're also simply too similar.”

BelieveSoulUniqueConceptsDon't BelieveMatesSoul Mate
Book:This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
Create image

“Are you one of those people who says on a first date, 'I'm really not in a hurry to meet somebody, I figure if it happens, it happens'? Because those are the most desperate people of all. I'm just saying this so that if you are this person, you aren't hiding it from anybody. There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.”

PeopleIfsFirstsPersonsHappensShareFiguresShameHungryDesperateHidingJust SayingFirst Date
Author:Augusten Burroughs
Create image