571 Quotes by Augusten Burroughs

Sometimes, people avoid recognizing how they feel because they believe the feelings are a part of them, and admitting to harboring anger or jealousy feels like admitting to a physical flaw. So certain feelings are denied. Which is something like believing your house is clean as long as you don’t peek under the beds.

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.

Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don’t go there alone.

He smiled like a cat with fresh chipmunk blood on his whiskers.

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.

In AA, you are brainwashed into believing that all the good stuff happens only after you stop drinking. Clearly they are lying; my life improved significantly as soon as I ordered a cocktail.

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.

It’s weird – sort of not terribly wise – to take a book that was successful and then change its cover.

You will either do so convincingly and well, or you won’t. But at least you will be plugged in to the moment in the process. Not flitting just outside of it, trying to keep everything together like one of those little heel-snapping Sheltie dogs.