Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Horrible things can happen to you, and horrible things happened to us on September 11. But if we look for love and happiness and fulfillment, we will find it.

I've met a lot of people who've lost their jobs and they still have a sense of humor.

Life is tough; and if you have the ability to laugh at it, you have the ability to enjoy it.

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you'd experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.

There's a lot of terrible things goin' on all the time, but you gotta try and have some fun in the end.

When people are in the midst of really heavy stuff and still have a sense of humor, I admire that.

I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn't very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity.

As might be supposed, my parents were quite poor, but we somehow never seemed to lack anything we needed, and I never saw a trace of discontent or a failure in cheerfulness over their lot in life, as indeed over anything.

I will sit in the car on the way to a meeting and just smile. I really mean that. It helps you get through life. If you have nothing to say, smile. Look up at the sky and smile. Just be grateful.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life. You have to find the lemonade. You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.

When you go through hell, your own personal hell, and you have lost - loss of fame, loss of money, loss of career, loss of family, loss of love, loss of your own identity that I experienced in my own life - and you've been able to face the demons that have haunted you... I appreciate everything that I have.

I found strength in what hurt me. And in my family - that's my strength as well. I'm truly grateful to be hurt as many times as I have, because I'm happy!

Some families can experience terrible tragedy and deal with it, and others not. I find those things fascinating.

There have been bumps, but everything has happened for a reason - maybe apart from the loss of some loved ones - and we have always tried to find a positive from it.

I didn't deserve to get my title stripped after three ACL reconstructions. I didn't deserve to be out for four years. But it happened to me, and so I definitely learned over the years that you don't deserve anything. Nothing you have is yours. Everything is up for grabs in this world.

So I have people who tweet and ask me, 'You can't be this happy all the time. You can't be this cheerful.' Well, yes I am. From where I've come from and my family and what I see as real struggles in day to day life, through my reporting. I'm never going to look at challenges.

Both my parents lived through a world war. My grandparents lived through two world wars. And they didn't go around saying, 'Look for happiness.'

I always felt really lucky that I only lost my legs, because it could've been so much worse.

Way back when I was working at the dump, I saw that, even when living among the trash, that some people would decide to choose joy in their lives.

I won my fight on 'The Ultimate Fighter,' my dad died the next day and I stayed in the game and won the whole thing.

I try to see the lightness of life, and that comes from having a hard time growing up.

The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses which befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this account, that our will has no part therein.

The universe doesn't really care if you bounce back. It doesn't feel that weird to write about paralysis or being in hospital or losing a child or, you know, splitting up with your wife, because that's just life.