Acceptance, when it comes, arrives in waves: Listen with your chest. You will feel a pendulum swing within you, favoring one direction or another. And that is your answer. The answer is always inside your chest. The right choice weighs more. That's how you know. It causes you to lean in its direction.
Augusten BurroughsThere is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.
Augusten BurroughsI remember, no matter how impossible it seemed that any given day would end, it always did. This one would, too.
Augusten BurroughsIt was like living in a new house. I saw the undersides of tables, walked through the tangle of chair legs. It would be good to be a dog, I thought. You would feel safe surrounded by all of these leggy objects that never tried to run away.
Augusten BurroughsI felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.
Augusten BurroughsAnd human instinct is ancient and reliable, utterly mysterious and possibly capable of great genius. I believe that refined, fluent instincts are a person's most valuable asset. My own instincts have repeatedly guided me against the grain of logic and probability. When I have trusted and followed their direction, they have never been wrong. I don't know how or why. But I know that every significant experience-positive or negative-sharpens them and makes them more accurate.
Augusten Burroughs