The truth is humbling, terrifying, and often exhilarating. It blows the doors off the hinges and fills the world with fresh air.
Augusten BurroughsRead
This is how you survive the unsurvivable, this is how you lose that which you cannot bear to lose, this is how you reinvent yourself, overcome your abusers, fulfill your ambitions and meet the love of your life: by following what is true, no matter where it leads you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of staying true to oneself in the face of adversity.
Augusten Burroughs highlights the profound impact of authenticity and truth in one's life journey. He suggests that by embracing what is genuine, individuals can navigate through their most challenging experiences, shed their past struggles, and ultimately transform themselves. This process of reinventing oneself involves not only overcoming challenges but also finding true love and fulfilling personal ambitions, all rooted in the commitment to follow one's truth, regardless of the obstacles encountered along the way.
Themes
SurvivalTruthReinventionAuthenticityOvercomingAmbitionsLove
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech to inspire students about personal growth.
More from Augusten Burroughs
All quotes →Some damage is too severe, some harm endures. And what you have to do is accept it. And by accept it I mean, don’t be the paralyzed person in the bed who is waiting to walk again. Realize, it’s never gonna happen. And find some other way to get around –swing from a vine, get a Mad Max wheelchair. Anything but…wait.
Augusten BurroughsRead
But then, look at me. My brain is incorrectly formed, and I'm shaped like a tube. Plus, I'm an alcoholic, a "survivor" of childhood sexual abuse, was raised in a cult and have no education. So, really, if you think about it, the only thing that separates me from the guy with the stinky foot and no teeth is a book deal and some cologne.
Augusten BurroughsRead
I think part of the reason I'm attracted to Foster is because he's such a mess. I mean, the people I have loved in my life have never been easy to love. I'm not used to normal. I'm used to disaster. I don't know, as messed up as he is, he's also sort of exciting, sort of a challenge. I'm accustomed to working for love.
Augusten BurroughsRead
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 BurroughsRead
Any damage that's been done, you have to fix yourself because it needs fixing and there is nobody else to do the work. Blame may well be justified, but it's not going to move you forward in your life.
Augusten BurroughsRead
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