Augusten Burroughs citations

Page 2

“If you hate your life, you haven't' seen enough of it. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't' fit you.”

“Everybody in recovery smokes. If you don't like smoking, don't even bother trying to get sober. Just stay drunk.”

“Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.”

“The truth is humbling, terrifying, and often exhilarating. It blows the doors off the hinges and fills the world with fresh air.”

“I was learning that if I lived slightly in the future-what will happen next-I didn't have to feel so much about what was going on in the present.”

“The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do.”

“Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.”

“I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.”

“To me, these people were as exotic as animals in a zoo. I'd never seen anything like them. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be one of them or simply live among them taking notes and photographs.”

“I hate news and information and anything that threatens to puncture the bubble of oblivion in which I live.”

“All children should be loved, protected, nurtured --emotionally and intellectually-- respected, and never, under any circumstances, underestimated.”

“Any damage that's been done, you have to fix yourself because it needs fixing and there is nobody else to do the work. Blame may well be justified, but it's not going to move you forward in your life.”

“My mistake was in underestimating the emotional force of a song you have already hear a thousand times.”

“I couldn't help but think, This car is taking me to a mental hospital and my mother is treating it like open-mic night at a Greenwich Village café.”

“Now I can addto my list of life's accomplishments.”

“He continues to smile expectantly. I take a step back. I don't want to catch whatever he has. He is a disturbing out-of-uniform Santa.”

“Smoking had become my favorite thing in the world to do. It was like having instant comfort, no matter where or when.”

“And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.”

“What nobody understood then is this: The only way that you achieve what you want and fulfill your dreams and become great is by demanding that sort of attention. You have to make it happen.”

“Even when we lose an arm or a leg, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue.”

“This is what you should know about losing someone you love. They do not travel alone. You go with them.”

“So we can be filled with holes and loss and wide expanses of unhealed geography - and we can also be excited by life and in love and content at the exact same moment.”

“Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.”

“God, I felt certain, did not mind that I didn’t press my hands together to pray. I was casual, but I was sincere. I knew that God existed as the Correct Answer inside my chest.”

“Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas; a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.”

“I did not consider him to be any kind of a genius. I considered him deeply lacking in the area that mattered most in life. Star quality.”

“Perfection is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you are a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off”

“Because here is the truth: If you want to have a chance at meeting somebody with whom you are genuinely compatible, never put your best foot forward.”

“Throwing things horrified me. I suffered extreme, paralyzing anxiety when it came to anything remotely athletic. I wouldn't even run to catch the school bus because I knew I'd trip and then get teased for a year.”