571 Quotes by Augusten Burroughs

What police officer would dare ticket Death’s minivan?

Dennis’s superior mental health was obvious from the first date, like a cleft palate. The other thing about him was that he had shapely, muscular legs. His calves were so sculpted they looked artificial, like silicone implants. This is a look I’m fond of. In fact, if I had been born a girl there is no doubt in my mind that my chest cavity would have been stuffed with two softball-sized orbs of silicone before my eleventh birthday. In this way my own mental health is somewhat like a cleft palate.

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

What is lint? How does it find hair dryers and navels?

Signs with missing letters can only mean bad things.

Feeling like you cannot stand one more minute doesn’t mean you can’t. You can, actually. It’s incredibly easy to stop smoking. And it’s horrifically uncomfortable. Then not quite horrifically uncomfortable. Then it’s damn uncomfortable. Then it’s uncomfortable. Then it’s not as uncomfortable as it was at first. Then it’s not so bad. And then you don’t smoke anymore. And you don’t miss it.

Whenever you lose something of great value, it’s important to focus on its value to you and not on the loss of it.

Instead of becoming depressed that I was in the locked ward of a mental hospital, I pretended I was playing a role in a movie, possibly on my way to an Emmy.

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little childhood. Unfortunately, that’s just not what happened.