Quote

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.

Augusten Burroughs

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Augusten Burroughs
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 23
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Less
Pause
Perfect
Pauses
Right
Timing
Thing
Awkward
Effective
Telling
Saying
Wrong
Considerable

More quotes by Augusten Burroughs

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I thought, I can't do advertising any more, so I was downloading all these PDF applications from community colleges. And I thought, I'll become a paramedic. I'll get a two-year associate degree, if I can get in.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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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
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your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood don't go there alone.
Augusten Burroughs
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The past doesn't haunt us, we haunt the past.
Augusten Burroughs
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He's a really nice guy, if only I weren't me.
Augusten Burroughs
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I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.
Augusten Burroughs
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I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn't deserve it.
Augusten Burroughs
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I always tried to learn Greek, but all I got out of it was, poulaki mou. [My little chicken.]
Augusten Burroughs
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I never listen to music when I write.
Augusten Burroughs
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I felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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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
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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I'm always prepared for the worst.
Augusten Burroughs
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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
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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.
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.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs