Time moves only forward, never back. We look forward to a moment and then it arrives and an instant later it is gone. Like something on the surface of a river that we reached for but did not touch in time and it carried on, away. You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. Because you can only live in the past inside your mind.
Augusten BurroughsAs I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings.
Augusten BurroughsThe line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.
Augusten BurroughsI understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. Iโm shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear. I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, thatโs all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if Iโm going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least Iโm writing and will have a record of the anxiety.
Augusten Burroughs