Quote

Childhood is what ended me up in the hospital and teetering on the edge of deathly alcoholism. It was really good for me to accept it. To accept all the embarrassment and the shame so I don't feel like I used to.

Augusten Burroughs

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Augusten Burroughs
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 23
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Good
Shame
Deathly
Like
Childhood
Alcoholism
Accept
Embarrassment
Accepting
Hospital
Used
Hospitals
Feel
Ended
Feels
Edge
Really
Edges
Teetering

More quotes by 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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I'm not going to waste my energy looking into the eyes of someone like the guy who blew my legs off trying to find a way to forgive him for doing something that horrible when there are way more productive ways I could be spending my life. You've got to focus on moving on.
Augusten Burroughs
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We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.
Augusten Burroughs
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All of us are richer and more fascinating and more complex than we can ever know.
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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?
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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I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outside looking in.
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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When people meet me, many times they're very surprised because they expect someone who is kind of wacky with seven piercings and very hip and cool and New York City, and I'm not.
Augusten Burroughs
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What police officer would dare ticket Death's minivan?
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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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Even when we lose an arm or a leg, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue.
Augusten Burroughs
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My subconscious does the writing I don't have control over that.
Augusten Burroughs
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your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood don't go there alone.
Augusten Burroughs
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I missed him so much that I had physical sensations of loss, all over my body. Like one minute I was missing an arm, the next my spleen. It was making me feel sick, like throwing up.
Augusten Burroughs
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Writing has enriched my life in ways I never imaged.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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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.
Augusten Burroughs
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Decisions are beautiful. They are the evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.
Augusten Burroughs
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But even with my minimal amount of fame, there are certain perks. Recently, I was at a movie premier, and at the party after the movie, Meryl Streep was loose, walking around the room like a normal person. Absolutely nothing was preventing me from lunging toward her and shrieking Dingoes ate my baby! Dingoes ate my baby!
Augusten Burroughs