Augusten Burroughs Thinking Quotations

I think people tend to see the bigger point, which is maybe not fitting in and feeling like you didn't have the childhood that you expected you would have, or that you felt lonely or struggled with drugs and alcohol or just that you were able to achieve your dreams.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outside looking in.

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.

Think of the actual physical elements that compose our bodies: we are 98 percent hydrogen and oxygen and carbon. That's table sugar. You are made of the same stuff as table sugar. Just a couple of tiny differences here and there and look what happened to the sugar: it can stand upright and send tweets.

I sit there and think how it isn't fair that I can't drink at all, even a little. I realize I have crammed an entire lifetime of moderate drinking into a decade of hard-core drinking and that is why. I blew my wad.

Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they're thinking.

When you say, "I need more confidence," what you're really saying is, "I need those people over there to approve of me." That is the desire to control other people and what they think. The first person who figures out how to do this owns the world.

No matter what I've written, someone somewhere has come up to me and said, "Me too." The truth can be offensive, but it's always nourishing, in a way. You recognize it. You can feel it. And even if [readers] think, "My god, I would never get in those situations," within those ridiculous circumstances that I have created for myself, they know the way I respond is probably what they would do too.

I don't really think of my blog as a real blog. It's a lame blog. It's more like my when-the-mood-strikes update, or smoke signal.

What I think of blogs is just this: Some are beautifully written and many are not. But even blogs that aren't necessarily "well" written are great for the person writing them.

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.

Self-pity is the bestiality of emotions: it absolutely disgusts people. When you're feeling pity for yourself, and somebody says to you 'You think maybe it's time for the pity party to be over? You should stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to think positive,' it makes you wish you could saw their head off.

Even painfully shy and awkward people are not painfully shy or awkward when they are alone. The way to access this natural, comfortable alone-self when you are with others is by choosing to forbid yourself to wonder what "they" are thinking. Instead, force yourself to exist in the instant, then take it- and give it- as it comes.

I think I love him, but I also think that you can love people who aren't good for you.

I'll always write about what's going on in my life and the reason for that is it's not actually because I'm so fascinated with myself, it's because I can't think. I can't think like have thoughts in my head and think them through and come to a conclusion. It's like math for me.

[Christmas] holidays are a heavy, heavy time. We make light of them with our red and green and our stockings and candy canes, but people think heavy thoughts over the holidays because that's when you're thinking about family. Are we close? Or are we not as close as other people?

I think part of the reason I'm attracted to Foster is because he's such a mess. I mean, the people I have loved in my life have never been easy to love. I'm not used to normal. I'm used to disaster. I don't know, as messed up as he is, he's also sort of exciting, sort of a challenge. I'm accustomed to working for love.

I think that the Internet is our most profound and beautiful achievement. It is magnificent. We have the Internet as a layer of our thinking that doesn't control us, we control it, yet we don't have to be aware of it. It will be like a suit that really fits well.

It’s a wonder I’m even alive. Sometimes I think that. I think that I can’t believe I haven’t killed myself. But there’s something in me that just keeps going on. I think it has something to do with tomorrow, that there is always one, and that everything can change when it comes.

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.

(The new boyfriend) knows I write every day for hours but has no idea that all I’m writing about is me. It seems wiser to let him think I’m an aspiring novelist instead of just an alcoholic with a year of sobriety who spends eight hours a day writing about the other 16.

There is nothing about MYSELF that I wouldn't reveal or write about. I don't care how horrendous or ridiculous I may appear in person or in print. There is great freedom in not caring what other people think.

I don't read memoirs. But if you write a memoir, I would think you'd want people to know, "O.K., look, I've taken some liberties here." It's just a matter of being open with your readers.

Freshly brainwashed from rehab, I carry the bottle into the bathroom. I hold it up to the light. See the pretty bottle? Isn't it beautiful? Yes, it's beautiful. I unscrew the cap and pour it into the toilet. I flush twice. And then I think, why did I flush twice? The answer, is of course, because I truly do know myself. I cannot be sure I won't attempt to drink from the toilet, like a dog.

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.

You can make almost anything a learning or positive experience. I think I offer a good example of how to make the most out of what life gives you and how to keep moving on.

I couldn't help but think, This car is taking me to a mental hospital and my mother is treating it like open-mic night at a Greenwich Village café.