Quotes from Augusten Burroughs

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.

Because here is the truth: If you want to have a chance at meeting somebody with whom you are genuinely compatible, never put your best foot forward.

The truth is that nobody is owed an apology for anything. Apologies are lovely when they happen. But they change nothing. They do not reverse actions or correct damage. They are merely nice to hear.

This is what happens when you go against the grain of truth. You get splinters later on.

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.

I love to both give and receive very old books.

I read a lot of science books - I love cosmology, quantum theory, particle physics. So my idea of a great read would probably put you directly into a coma.

I tend to really enjoy being swept up in fiction. I love a good story and I admire fiction authors.

I think people tend to see the bigger point, which is maybe not fitting in and feeling like you didn't have the childhood that you expected you would have, or that you felt lonely or struggled with drugs and alcohol or just that you were able to achieve your dreams.

With my own memoirs, they are truthful, and I write everything fully expecting to some day end up televised on Court TV, and I'm fully prepared to be challenged legally on it.

I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outside looking in.

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

I don't read memoirs. But if you write a memoir, I would think you'd want people to know, "O.K., look, I've taken some liberties here." It's just a matter of being open with your readers.

I suppose home is, for me, more of a state of mind. It's really more of about being where I want to be with people I care about.

Reading takes solitude and it takes focus.

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

I like, though, that people have a hunger to connect with other people. They're desperate to know that you're not lying to them or misleading them.

Marriage is overdone. As long as there are people, people are going to find it interesting.

and she's a nurse. do you know how hard nursing school is? it's like medical school. so she's obviously smart.

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

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.

There's never a false note in a Berg novel.

Part of me believes that love is more valuable when you have to work for it.