Quote

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

Augusten Burroughs

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Augusten Burroughs
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 23
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Talk
Give
Pep
Giving
Housekeeping
Real
Earned
Optimism
Labor
Emotional
Involved

More quotes by Augusten Burroughs

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When I first thought of being a writer I had visions of stacks of books in stores with my name on them, that sort of thing. But I never imagined this would be the reaction.
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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.
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If I were a serial killer, I would not be the kind that stabs and then eats the victim. I would be the kind that hides in a tree and shoots at the aerobics class.
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I never could have written the screenplay because I would have been forced to learn new software and I can't learn one more thing.
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I felt a bottomless sadness. So completely alone. Like one of my stuffed animals at home that I was too old for now, that sat on the shelf in my closet, mashed against the back wall.
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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.
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Writing has enriched my life in ways I never imaged.
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My attraction had been immediate and profound. And it had nothing to do with the way he looked. My attraction was to what resided between his lines.
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Saying just the right thing after a considerable, awkward pause is far less effective than saying the wrong thing with perfect timing. I'm telling you.
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There's never a false note in a Berg novel.
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Decisions are beautiful. They are the evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.
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I read a lot of science books - I love cosmology, quantum theory, particle physics. So my idea of a great read would probably put you directly into a coma.
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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?
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Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.
Augusten Burroughs
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Do not wait for the healing to arrive. It will never come. The holes will never leave or be filled with anything at all. But holes are interesting things.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
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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.
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I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outside looking in.
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Marriage is overdone. As long as there are people, people are going to find it interesting.
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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.
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