571 Quotes by Augusten Burroughs

Optimism sprouts from the knowledge that you are in control of your own life, not your past and not those around you. Part of being in control is taking responsibility for how you feel. This means not just admitting to uncomfortable feelings but then examining your circumstances to see what can be done to change these feelings at the source.

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 turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.

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

If I were blind I'd rather have another blind person leading me around because they know what I'm dealing with and they're experiencing the same things.

The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do.

Even when we lose an arm or a leg, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue.

In general, advertising isn't a "creative" atmosphere. It's a business atmosphere and your job is puzzle solving. My favorite aspect of the business, I guess, was presenting to clients. What I enjoyed least were the clients. Worried corporate brand managers, trying to dumb-down their ads for the stupid American population. I hated the disrespect that these people had for "consumers."

Perfection is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you are a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off