Augusten Burroughs
Augusten Burroughs
Augusten Xon Burroughsis an American writer known for his New York Times bestselling memoir Running with Scissors...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMemoirist
Date of Birth23 October 1965
CountryUnited States of America
drinking giving way
In some ways, blogging is like drinking - it gives a person permission to be a total asshole.
guy way conservative
I'm like the guy who prepares your taxes or a dentist. I'm very conservative and boring in a lot of ways.
lying people hunger
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.
mother air people
Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.
dark people savages
The dark side of blogging is, of course, people can be (and are) just savage and uncivilized, deeply cruel and fully unaccountable.
children childhood racist
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.
summer sadness firefly
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.
mind neighborhood unsafe
your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.
writing way
Writing has enriched my life in ways I never imaged.
new-york cancer wine
Women smirk at baldness. How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both tits just shrunk up - unevenly I might add - and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs. Then it would be a different story. Then men would get the pity that they deserve. As far as I'm concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer only worse, because almost everyone gets it. True, it's not life threatening. Just social-life threatening. But in New York City, there is no difference.
mother father mean
My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective.
beautiful dog thinking
Freshly brainwashed from rehab, I carry the bottle into the bathroom. I hold it up to the light. See the pretty bottle? Isn't it beautiful? Yes, it's beautiful. I unscrew the cap and pour it into the toilet. I flush twice. And then I think, why did I flush twice? The answer, is of course, because I truly do know myself. I cannot be sure I won't attempt to drink from the toilet, like a dog.
reading focus solitude
Reading takes solitude and it takes focus.
writing worry smoking
I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I’m shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear. I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that’s all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I’m going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I’m writing and will have a record of the anxiety.