Augusten Burroughs Quotes

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

Writers are often alone when they work. Hours pass in silence as one long moment; light fades as day turns back to face the coming night.

A book isn't noise to drown out other noise.

I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don't ever go out for lunch and I don't take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.

From 7 in the morning to 11 at night, I was reading. I don't think one can find any other time in one's life to be left alone so much to read in peace like that.

I'm a songwriter. I need silence to hear the melodies, so I don't fill the days with a lot of sound.

I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired.

Night time really is the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone is asleep.

When I write I find a quiet place.

I like working in silence.

Probably nothing serious or worthwhile can be accomplished without one's willingness to be alone for sustained periods of time, which is not to say that one must live alone, obsessively.

I'm, like, a real nerd, in that I will take a book that is three inches thick and disappear and not leave until it's done.

If I'm doing a scene that requires a lot of focus, I'll just take myself away and do what I have to do.

With a book, there's no volume to turn up. You're very naked with a book.

If I have a show at night, I like to spend the whole day alone in silence. I know that might be crazy.

Out of silence is born concentration, and from that comes learning.

The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book.

The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice -- they won't hear you otherwise -- "I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything: just hope they'll leave you alone.

I prefer to be left alone with my books.

She kept watching the words.

Real reading is a lonely activity.

It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.