Augusten Burroughs > Quotes

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. Because they are all you have. Because any attention is better than no attention. For exactly the same reason, it is sometimes satisfying to cut yourself and bleed. On those gray days where eight in the morning looks no different from noon and nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen and you are washing a glass in the sink and it breaks-accidentally-and punctures your skin. And then there is this shocking red, the brightest thing in the day, so vibrant it buzzes, this blood of yours. That is okay sometimes because at least you know you’re alive.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“I think I love him, but I also think that you can love people who aren't good for you.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“You deserve to need me, not to have me.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“I hate feelings. Why does sobriety have to come with feelings?”
― Augusten Burroughs

“My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwhich, I am God' sort of way.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors: A Memoir

“Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“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.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“I am prone to envy. It is one of my three default emotions, the others being greed and rage. I have also experienced compassion and generosity, but only fleetingly and usually while drunk, so I have little memory.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“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.”
― Augusten Burroughs, A Wolf at the Table

“Part of me believes that love is more valuable when you have to work for it.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was a part of me that enjoyed hating school, and the drama of not going, the potential consequences whatever they were. I was intrigued by the unknown. I was even slightly thrilled that my mother was such a mess. Had I become addicted to crisis? I traced my finger along the windowsill. 'Want something normal, want something normal, want something normal', I told myself.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors: A Memoir

“Doctor, if being a bitch is healthy, then I am the healthiest damn woman on the face of the earth”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“Red hair is great. It's rare, and therefore superior.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“So that's what I'm here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven't felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plants are wilted, weary from being so green.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“Just as I had long suspected, a person didn't really need math for anything anyway. Maybe some people did. Some limited people.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Possible Side Effects

“We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“The reason I know what we are to each other is because we fight freely and almost constantly, about even the smallest thing. In fact, once we didn't speak for an entire week because he didn't like the way I loaded his dishwasher...I can't decide if we're exact opposites, or somehow exactly the same except for minor cosmetic differences. I do know that all of his friends hate me and all of my friends hate him. We drive each other crazy in ways that nobody else can even touch. We never bore each other. And we both realize what a rare thing this is.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“I just look at her and she creeps me out. She looks like she would eat a baby. Not that she's fat. She just looks hungry in some dangerous way that can't be explained. She's always so nice and friendly. Exactly the disposition of a baby killer.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors: A Memoir

“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.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“Some damage is too severe, some harm endures. And what you have to do is accept it. And by accept it I mean, don’t be the paralyzed person in the bed who is waiting to walk again. Realize, it’s never gonna happen. And find some other way to get around –swing from a vine, get a Mad Max wheelchair. Anything but…wait.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“...I don't think it's any more deceptive than wearing four-inch come-fuck-me pumps when one has no intention of ever fucking anybody.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Possible Side Effects

“When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“...handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“I believe in the baby Jesus, and I believe he is handsome and lives in the sky with his pet cow. I believe that it is essential the cow like you, and if you pet the cow with your mind, it will lick your hand and give you cash. But if you make the cow angry, it will turn away from you, forget you exist, and your life will fall into shambles. I believe that as long as the cow likes you, you can get what you want. In order to keep the cow’s favor, you need to ‘let go and let God,’ meaning you can’t obsess about controlling every little thing. You have to let things unfold naturally, and not try to change things you cannot change. On the other hand, I believe that if you’ve made the cow happy by living this way, you’re allowed to ask for favors...”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking

“Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then i realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“I will please shut the hell up the day you please drop the hell dead”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Possible Side Effects

“It turns out that (he) has a condition known as micropenis. This means his penis is less than three inches long, fully erect. It looks like a large clitoris, sticking out above two balls.
"Suck my big, fat cock, " he tells me. "You like that big dick?"
I am dizzy. I am literally dizzy. I was so shocked to encounter the micropenis and now am even more shocked to encounter the apparent lack of knowledge about the micropenis. I grip it in my hand, and it's lost, so I use my thumb and index finger to jerk it.
"Yeah, " he says. "Yeah, man, stroke that long, hard cock. Work it."
I am now engaged in what I consider volunteer work. I am jerking him off purely out of pity. This is really no different from donating five percent of my paycheck to United Way every month, and it occurs to me that maybe now I don't need to give to the United Way and instead can keep the cash for myself for dating, which I am obviously going to have to do quite a bit more of.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling with the facts. Why me? Didn't I already have a big love once? And lost it? So why should I get it again? I've had to stop trying to look for cracks and flaws to prove that it's not as good as it seems. Because it's as good as it seems. Even when we fight, we fight inside the container of good.

Somehow, through a flip of the coin, I ended up here. Feeling like somebody at the top of the heart-lung transplant recipient list. Damaged but invigorated and fucking lucky.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“In the opening to the Mary Tyler Moore Show Mary's in the supermarket, hurrying through the aisles. She pauses at the meat case, picks up a steak and checks the price. Then rolls her eyes, shrugs and tosses it in the cart. That's kind of how I feel. Sure I would have liked things to be different. But, 'roll of eyes' what can you do? 'shrug' I threw the meat in my cart and moved on.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“Everybody in recovery smokes. If you don't like smoking, don't even bother trying to get sober. Just stay drunk.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Possible Side Effects

“Turn off the light," she says as she walks away, creating a small woosh that smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because it's the smell she makes when she's leaving.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors: A Memoir

“He's a really nice guy, if only I weren't me.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“It was unnerving, the way she could go from cool efficiency to sarcastic to sweet within the space of thirty seconds. I found it very manipulative and controlling. It put the other person constantly on-guard. And it was extremely intimidating because you never knew when she was going to snap. I made a mental note to refine these skills within myself.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“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.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“I felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“To me, these people were as exotic as animals in a zoo. I'd never seen anything like them. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be one of them or simply live among them taking notes and photographs. ”
― Augusten Burroughs

“In addition to calling each other standard names like bitch and whore, the Finches incorporated Freud's stages of psycho-sexual development into their arsenal of invectives.

"You're so oral. You'll never make it to genital! The most you can ever hope for is to reach anal, you immature, frigid old maid," Natalie yelled.

"Stop antagonizing me," Hope shouted. "Just stop transfering all this anger onto me."

"Your avoidance tactics are not giong to work, Miss Hope," Natalie warned. "I'm not going to let you just slink away from me. You hate me and you have to confront me.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“Our lives are one endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

“It was impossible to escape her. She provided no natural break in the conversation, and she spoke with such intensity that I would have had to abruptly shout "SHUT THE FUCK UP," punch her, and then run away in order to be free.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

“Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors: A Memoir

“God, I felt certain, did not mind that I didn’t press my hands together to pray. I was casual, but I was sincere. I knew that God existed as the Correct Answer inside my chest.”
― Augusten Burroughs, A Wolf at the Table