Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

I have a very clear picture of what I want to do and what I feel is important as far as my contribution or my appreciation and respect for this life that we're living, and to try to make it better. I can't feel that I'm making it better playing commercial music, and I never could, and I never will.

By writing I can live in ways that I could not survive.

I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.

I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

I do think that just about whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the literary product is any good.

I've been writing as long as I've been able to form words. I never wrote with an idea of publishing anything until I began working on '[To Kill a] Mockingbird'. I think that what went before may have been a rather subconscious form of learning how to write, of training myself.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a picture. Write.

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

If you want anything to change, you've got to change it. If you want things to get better, you've got to get better. And the only way to really do well in life is to find more value than anybody.

Never be afraid to let people go if they're not right; often that's the only way you can make room for the right person.

I still break racquets, but now I do it in a positive way.

It's what I wanted to do with my life. Not necessarily just direct Jim Carrey movies, but to direct and act and write and create and along the way discover what it is that I'm about.

I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else.

The best way that we can begin to produce positive change is to make peace with what is in ourselves and others, and then work to move forward and make life even better.

I just think motherhood made me better, I think it rejuvenates you as a person, mind, body and spirit, and I think every woman is different.

The older I get, the more determined I feel to do whatever I can to help release that human potential somehow. Not in a fluffy way nor in a hardcore way. But in that middle ground, that marriage of love and power. I'm not afraid of either.

I'm a musician. I write songs. I just hope when the day is done I've been able to tear a little corner off of the darkness.

Write down the area of your life that most needs your attention right now and then write out all the details you saw of your soul's vision for this part of your life. What will that part of your life look like? How will achieving your goal change your life? How will it change the life of those around you? When you reach your goal, when you fulfill that desire, what will it make room for? Write that all down.

Some may say [journal keeping] is a great deal of trouble. But we should not call anything trouble which brings to pass good. I consider that portion of my life which has been spent in keeping journals and writing history to have been very profitably spent. - "If there was no other motive in view [except] to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it.

What you do today can change all the tomorrow's of your life.

In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.

The fastest way to get to a new-and-improved situation is to make peace with your current situation.