Augusten Burroughs Quotes - Page 8

Most of us have love in our lives. Most of us love other people are are ourselves loved by others. But make no mistake: you are alone in the world. You were born alone, even if you were born conjoined. And you die alone, unable to bring a single person with you.

Truthfulness itself is almost medication, even when it’s served without advice or insight.

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

No matter your spiritual beliefs, if you hold any, the answer is the same: sometimes, why is not knowable. If you open the refrigerator door and a tub of Kozy Shack tapioca pudding tumbles out and splats open onto the floor, you clean it. You don’t stand there and question why it happened, how it was possible. Why doesn’t matter now.

Bad news should be followed with soup. Then a nap.

All children should be loved, protected, nurtured --emotionally and intellectually-- respected, and never, under any circumstances, underestimated.

I was in advertising for years. That was cushy, you know? It's pretty cushy in a lot of ways, but I hated it.

I love you," she said, and I knew she meant it because she spoke the words from the heart at the center of her chest. This, at least, had not been left behind at the hospital.

The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.

I felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.

but I am not here ironically; I am here sincerely.

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.

And I hope she does not live in a dark world. Because even the most terrible loss doesn't have to make you darker; it can make you deeper.

The more obsessed one is with getting thin, the more certain it becomes that one will never get there.

Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.

I never listen to music when I write.

You deserve to need me, not to have me.

your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.

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.

Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.

I gazed around the room and my eyes stopped dead on a little boy standing in the corner. This was a particularly eerie doll. Life-sized and blond-haired and blue-eyed. I saw a little Nazi boy, pockets probably stuffed with scissors and retractable blades. My grandfather on my mother's side was rumored to be half Jewish, which practically makes me Jerry Seinfeld's brother, and thus wary of blond German boys with their hands out of sight.

In the same way that a tornado rips the roof off a double-wide trailer, leaving the occupants dazed and staring at the clouds from the splinters of what used to be their living room, it was over.

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.

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.

Miracles do happen. You must believe this. No matter what else you believe about life, you must believe in miracles.