Augusten Burroughs quote: "I think…Have I given up anything by living with another person? Has there been a trade-off? Always, there is a trade-off. And the answer comes to me instantly. I have given up a certain degree of freedom. The ability to plow through my life with utter disregard for the thoughts and feelings of other people. I can no longer read a magazine and throw it on the floor. In exchange, I get unlimited access to the one person I have met in my life whom I automatically felt was out of my league. My favorite human being, the single person I cherish above all others. This is the person I get to share the oxygen in the room with . And for this, I will happily scrub the toilet."

I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just h...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Bec...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one si...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

He continues to smile expectantly. I take a step back. I don't want to catch whatever he has. He is ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I like, though, that people have a hunger to connect with other people. They're desperate to know th...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chai...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Because I've lived in one room my entire life, working at the same table that you use to pay bills a...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rej...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many d...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I think people tend to see the bigger point, which is maybe not fitting in and feeling like you didn...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing o...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I'm always prepared for the worst. I was prepared to have the book come out, sell seven copies, ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

If we happened to be in rehearsal downstairs in my room and a neighbor padded across the lawn to rap...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling wi...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and l...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. Because they are all you have...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

You deserve to need me, not to have me.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Augusten very distant tonight. Probably because of my games.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Suddenly, this word fills me with a sense of sadness I haven't felt since childhood. The kind of sad...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Why am I so anxious? And then it hits me. I'm not anxious, I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horrib...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alo...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Doctor, if being a bitch is healthy, then I am the healthiest damn woman on the face of the earth
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'ga...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emot...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

His toes wriggle in his socks and my first thought is, I want to snip them off with hedge trimmers. ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Never work with children, puppies or bulimics
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Nothing surprises me now," I tell him. I am stoic. I am Joan of Arc, with liver damage and an unused...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Freshly brainwashed from rehab, I carry the bottle into the bathroom. I hold it up to the light. See...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

If you're gay and live in New York and don't go to gym, eventually they come for you.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I once read about a guy who lost his arms in a fire. The nurse took pity on him and gave him a hand ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

After I cut off his penis, I sautéed it in rosemary butter and ate it"
"But did you go to a me...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

What I really want is to sit next to someone on an L.L. bean blanket on the beach in the fall and dr...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

There's not enough of me left over.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I sit there and think how it isn't fair that I can't drink at all, even a little. I realize I have c...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

You have an incredible body." He reaches out to touch my stomach. I feel no pleasure in his complime...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

We haven't slept together. But we've napped
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

His laugh is made if porch swings and lemonade
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Sometimes when you work in advertising you'll get a product that's really garbage and you have to ma...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Tracy, the leader of the CDH group, looks at me with eyes that seem to belong to someone three times...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcohol...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

He's a really nice guy, if only I weren't me.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

...handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matte...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I think part of the reason I'm attracted to Foster is because he's such a mess. I mean, the people I...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

The reason I know what we are to each other is because we fight freely and almost constantly, about ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Part of me believes that love is more valuable when you have to work for it.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

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

I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Marriage is overdone. As long as there are people, people are going to find it interesting.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I love to both give and receive very old books.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I was on the cover of a lot of newspapers. I was on the cover of USA Today for every single day for ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Then he explains Chinese food in Manhattan to me: 'See the way it works is, there's one central loca...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Dennis's superior mental health was obvious from the first date, like a cleft palate. The other thin...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I realized I could really become hooked on these happy pills. They gave me a glorious feeling of gen...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Rarely do very handsome men allow their faces to run around without a leash. I am not very ha...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

After a horribly long day, I needed a mental break. I threw on my parka, with the raccoon fur around...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Let the people who want to have kids, have them. And let the rest of us spend the extra money on our...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

There just didn't seem to be anything to hold on to. We weren't going anywhere, and we weren't pulli...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

The most mortifying fact of my life is something that happened when I was fourteen and I have never ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But even with my minimal amount of fame, there are certain perks. Recently, I was at a movie premier...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

After I got my coffee, I leaned against a stop sign and sipped, pretending it was a normal day and I...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

On typical days, (dust) is simply irritating. On Roid Rage days, it made me want to stomp down to th...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

What police officer would dare ticket Death's minivan?
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

He likes people because he likes to share in conversations. I like people when they have large check...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I was struck with a bolt of distilled horror like I have never known before. Far worse than suddenly...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But then, look at me. My brain is incorrectly formed, and I'm shaped like a tube. Plus, I'm an alcoh...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract i...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

The only other people who have had experiences similar to those of this man were locked up inside in...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

If I were a serial killer, I would not be the kind that stabs and then eats the victim. I would be t...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Give that mint Milano back, you bitch. If you can't at least be polite, you don't get a treat.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

but I am not here ironically; I am here sincerely.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

(The new boyfriend) knows I write every day for hours but has no idea that all I’m writing about i...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I hate news and information and anything that threatens to puncture the bubble of oblivion in which ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

It was impossible to escape her. She provided no natural break in the conversation, and she spoke wi...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

It turns out that (he) has a condition known as micropenis. This means his penis is less than three ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

It was unnerving, the way she could go from cool efficiency to sarcastic to sweet within the space o...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I believe in the baby Jesus, and I believe he is handsome and lives in the sky with his pet cow. I b...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of fla...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

With my own memoirs, they are truthful, and I write everything fully expecting to some day end up te...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I like it when she's shiny, like a star, like a guest on the Donnie and Marie Show.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

[My brother] shaped my young life. First, he taught me how to walk. Then, armed with sticks and dead...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I could not imagine the kind of person that would, upon seeing a crazy talcum-powder-covered Souther...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Just as I had long suspected, a person didn't really need math for anything anyway. Maybe some peopl...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Are you one of those people who says on a first date, 'I'm really not in a hurry to meet somebody, I...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I never listen to music when I write.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outsi...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I'm like the guy who prepares your taxes or a dentist. I'm very conservative and boring in a...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I've just finished my next collection, Possible Side Effects, and I'm now working on a colle...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they h...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Reading takes solitude and it takes focus.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

There's never a false note in a Berg novel.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Because I've lived in one room my entire life, working at the same table that you use to pay bil...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I like, though, that people have a hunger to connect with other people. They're desperate to kno...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's somet...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

When people meet me, many times they're very surprised because they expect someone who is kind o...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Turn off the light," she says as she walks away, creating a small woosh that smells sweet and...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I will please shut the hell up the day you please drop the hell dead
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Red hair is great. It's rare, and therefore superior.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

As with other phases of nature, I have probably loved the rocks more than I have studied them.
JOHN BURROUGHS

You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

All sounds are sharper in winter; the air transmits better.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Leap, and the net will appear.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
JOHN BURROUGHS

If you think you can do it, you can.
JOHN BURROUGHS

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of cong...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A plump, well-fed stream is as satisfying to behold as a well-fed animal or a thrifty tree. One sour...
JOHN BURROUGHS

There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird. He is the gay champion and...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I crave and seek a natural explanation of all phenomena upon this earth, but the word 'natural&#...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupatio...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark o...
JOHN BURROUGHS

In the fields and woods more than anything else all things come to those who wait, because all thing...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and w...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The secret of happiness is something to do.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer th...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communi...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of t...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: "To rise above the little things."
JOHN BURROUGHS

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all -- that has been my religion.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Serene I told my hands and wait, Nor care for wind or tide nor sea; I rave no more 'gainst tim...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Without death and decay, how could life go on?
JOHN BURROUGHS

Holiness is the very principle of eternal life, the very beginning of eternal life in the heart, and...
JEREMIAH BURROUGHS

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I s...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Our flying squirrel is in no proper sense a flyer. On the ground, he is more helpless than a chipmun...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The animal world seizes its food in masses little and big, and often gorges itself with it, but the ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of nature in her milder and more fami...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
JOHN BURROUGHS

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy da...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed b...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The momen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the real...
JOHN BURROUGHS

England is not a country of granite and marble, but of chalk, marl, and clay.
JOHN BURROUGHS

August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen hawk is the most noticeable. He likes the haz...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
JOHN BURROUGHS

To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not de...
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the su...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, i...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his ham...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The type of mind of Whitman's, which seldom or never emerges as a mere mentality, an independent...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the winter than in the summer. The ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consci...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army: the ranks are being...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold and reckless in leaping through the trees is that, ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

If America wishes to preserve her native birds, we must help supply what civilization has taken from...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christia...
JEFF BURROUGHS

Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing. The city, a place to which one goes to...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larcen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice fro...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Literature is an investment of genius which has dividends to all subsequent times
JOHN BURROUGHS

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thin...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Augusten Burroughs

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