Quotes from Augusten Burroughs

I saw a monkey walking on a leash and thought it was an ugly foreign child.

Rarely do very handsome men allow their faces to run around without a leash. I am not very handsome, but I am above-average handsome, which means I have spent only one-sixteenth of my life in front of a mirror practicing facial expressions, as opposed to the maybe one-fourth that a very handsome guy might have. Yet I can tell you that if I had accidentally spilled coffee on a first date, I would have immediately made facial expression number 69b: Spilled Coffee on First Date face.

Normal people who weren't raised by mentally ill goats probably took the feeling of safety for granted. They only noticed when they suddenly felt unsafe. When the hands reach up for under the bed and grab their ankles, they scream, whereas I'm like "Wait, can you scratch my knee before you kill me?

There just didn't seem to be anything to hold on to. We weren't going anywhere, and we weren't pulling away. We were just floating, suspended in liquid. And I guess I want more. And I don't know what he wants.

My brother] shaped my young life. First, he taught me how to walk. Then, armed with sticks and dead snakes, he chased me and I learned how to run.

The events of the past cannot be fully understood when you are the only element of the past actively engaged in reliving it.

It terrified me to consider: What if, as a grown-up, I craved another body beside me as still as this one? What then?

I was not living but actively dying.

Let the people who want to have kids, have them. And let the rest of us spend the extra money on ourselves. Being gay doesn't make you a bad person. Not wanting kids doesn't make you a bad person. Perhaps crushing the bones in one little girl's hand makes you a bad person, but that was an accident.

Never work with children, puppies or bulimics

I'm a sunflower with a cracked petal.

Well, you know, just some old man all alone. God, I hope I don't end up alone like that. Some pathetic old woman with nobody to go on a whale watch with.

I could not imagine the kind of person that would, upon seeing a crazy talcum-powder-covered Southern lady think to herself, Hmmmm, she might make a great new friend. The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin.

Give me down. And give me the Polaroids of the fifty geese that had to die in the process.

Nothing worth having comes easy is not about showing up early at the office. It's about showing up in your own life. And living inside the very moment you want to run away from.

Where there is willpower there is a Band Aid that's eventually going to fall off. You only need willpower to get what you don't want or you only want to want. By want to want, I mean, something you wish you wanted but don't really.

Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.

Happiness is a wonderful goal for those who are inclined on a genetic level toward that emotional end of the spectrum. Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.

After a horribly long day, I needed a mental break. I threw on my parka, with the raccoon fur around the hood, and I went to see a movie. But what to see? Something sweet and stupid and harmless. At the movie theater on Second Avenue and Twelfth, a title caught my eye. I thought, 'That seems good. Jodie Foster and a puffy, friendly farm animal, a butterfly.' I unzipped my jacket and headed inside to see a movie I'd heard the name of but knew nothing about. It was called Silence Of The Lambs.

Bookman isn't a stable man. He has a lot of problems that run very, very deep. But he was really good at giving head.

The horrible thing about being sober is you lose your excuse for being so fucked up.

You should know, I tried for many years not to be in love with you, but I failed. And I really did try very hard. But it was not possible, and it never has been, because I have actually loved you from very early in our relationship. Possibly as early as our first meeting.

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 always is one, and that everything can change when it comes.

What I like about you is that I've never met anybody like you in my life. You've got depth and you're funny and you have a sweet, good soul. A breeze from the water passes over us, And I admire your strength.