Quote

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.

Augusten Burroughs

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Augusten Burroughs
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 23
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Nobody
Tell
Problem
Scissors
Anybody
Understood

More quotes by Augusten Burroughs

Image
Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
Not crazy in a 'let's paint the kitchen bright red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God' sort of way. Gone were the days when she would stand on the deck lighting lemon-scented candles without then having to eat the wax.p28
Augusten Burroughs
Image
Long marriages have ended in ruin over tiny and insignificant grievances that were never properly aired and instead grew into a brittle barnacle of hatred.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
It's weird - sort of not terribly wise - to take a book that was successful and then change its cover.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwhich, I am God' sort of way.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
Maybe you feel pressure to be positive because so many people rely on your good, fake-positive energy? If that's the case, screw everybody else. You're not a bottle of Valium.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alone. Maybe God was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
My thoughts seem thick, ketchup stuck in a bottle. Like trying to feel someone's face while wearing goosedown mittens.
Augusten Burroughs
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.
Augusten Burroughs
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?
Augusten Burroughs
Image
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.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I've learned how to turn the adversities in my life into enriching experiences. You can actually gain a lot from adversities and they make you the person you are today.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I think I love him, but I also think that you can love people who aren't good for you.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
Never work with children, puppies or bulimics.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I don't think writers - in general - ever achieve the fame of movie stars. For the simple reason that only a fraction of the population reads. But I guess there are exceptions.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I was on the cover of a lot of newspapers. I was on the cover of USA Today for every single day for a month. I was on the masthead, so I tend to get recognized a lot, and in weird places. It's always flattering, and it's always odd. It's always at the worst possible time.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
I think people might think, oh, I don't want to approach the big famous author because it's embarrassing, but then they think for two seconds about it and realize, this is, like, a toilet bowl reader.
Augusten Burroughs
Image
The most valuable moments and experiences that life has to offer are found only along its most treacherous paths.
Augusten Burroughs