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The Schnauzer listens to jazz. I listen to jazz because he likes it, and I have even gone to jazz concerts with him, but truthfully I would rather listen to retarded children pounding on pan lids with wooden spoons.

Augusten Burroughs

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Augusten Burroughs
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: October 23
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Jazz
Pounding
Listen
Truthfully
Gone
Wooden
Rather
Retarded
Funny
Spoons
Children
Listens
Even
Concerts
Schnauzers
Would
Likes
Lids

More quotes by 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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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
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I'm grateful for a lot of things. One is not being a drunk wreck. Or losing all four limbs in some ridiculous East Village bus accident that I was so destined for.
Augusten Burroughs
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I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.
Augusten Burroughs
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There's a lot about being A Writer that has nothing to do with writing. That's one thing I've discovered. You've got to meet with the sales force, and you've got to have all these luncheons, and be gracious, and you've got to give a lot of presentations and you've got to give a lot of speeches, and you've got to be on tour.
Augusten Burroughs
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There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.
Augusten Burroughs
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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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He's a really nice guy, if only I weren't me.
Augusten Burroughs
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And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.
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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It terrified me to consider: What if, as a grown-up, I craved another body beside me as still as this one? What then?
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 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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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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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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I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn't deserve it.
Augusten Burroughs
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but I am not here ironically I am here sincerely.
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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Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.
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