Augusten Burroughs Quotes

It's actually kind of a skill to act cold - to have the mannerisms of being cold when it's the complete opposite of how you behave when you're hot.

I don’t like being threatened, lied to, or manipulated. You’d do well to remember that. (Simone) Or what? You’re going to snivel at me? (Xypher)

I tend to keep things that bother me clandestine... well-hidden. I'm also not very good at recognising the reasons that change my moods - they just seem to happen, which is not great for those around me.

I guess if I get a little weird about something that isn't the way I want it, and I complain, then it's called controlling.

Passive aggressors who are adept at this will have trained themselves to remain calm, while you get irritated and emotional.

If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.

Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.

I was an emotional manipulator of fighters . . . You have to know how to be cold, you know? Just have no -emotions, no feelings. It takes time, though, to develop that. I'd been working on that since I was 12 years old. It doesn't happen overnight.

Influencing people is dangerous. Their acts and thoughts become your illegitimate children. You can't get away from them and Heaven knows what they mayn't grow up into.

I control every interaction with every human being I'm with. I can actually manage any situation with 98 percent of the people on Earth.

My father has a way of persuading people without charm that has always confused me. He states his opinions as if they’re facts, and somehow his complete lack of doubt makes you believe him. That quality frightens me now, because I know what he told me: that I was broken, that I was worthless, that I was nothing. How many of those things did he make me believe?

I can frighten or buy ninety-nine out of every one hundred men.

She tried to get even with him through psychological warfare but couldn't, because he didn't care.

I can control the weather with my moods. I just can’t control my moods.

I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.

I don't like people that try to psyche other people out.

In almost any situation, it is far more devastating to keep your icy cool while the other person gets herself in a flush-cheeked, teary-eyed hot mess yelling in your face.

Cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next.

To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.

The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.

I didn't know whether to trust Alaska, and I'd certainly had enough of her unpredictability - cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next. I preferred the Colonel: At least when he was cranky, he had a reason.

He had discovered that people who allow themselves to be blown about by the winds of emotion and impulse are always unhappy people.

Dramatic exits are the last refuge of the infantile personality

The emotions will take care of themselves. You don't have to prod them along. As a matter of fact, you get in trouble when you prod them along.

That's why I want you there, he said. You're unpredictable, and that can be the difference between success and failure. Most people make decisions in anger, fear, love, or obligation. You make decisions to irritate people.