Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

I never really considered writing something that was nonfiction.

If you're going to write about your life, you must write about your life.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

Let me tell you what, reality is better than any script you could ever write.

What is the difference between the novelist and the liar? At some moments, I have often wondered.

Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.

Use your imagination. Trust me, your lives are not interesting. Don't write them down.

Fiction writing feels more honest to me.

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

I'm a novelist who read a lot as a kid. When you grow up on books and then grow up to write books, famous authors are a lot more meaningful to you than TV and movie stars.

My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.

I started writing stories as a child.

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

I'm trying to tell a story and do it truthfully.

I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

The only way to be a novelist, to think that you can create something others will give themselves up to for a dozen hours or more, is to have psychotic self-belief.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.