A Quote by Augusten Burroughs

It's weird - sort of not terribly wise - to take a book that was successful and then change its cover. — © Augusten Burroughs
It's weird - sort of not terribly wise - to take a book that was successful and then change its cover.
I find that with period pieces, you're sort of able to really take advantage of what's around you because prop-wise, wardrobe-wise and location-wise, it's all so specific due to that time.
The only book I ever read cover to cover was The Pete Rose Story. I read half of The Lou Gehrig Story and then made a book report on it for four straight years.
If you've written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a 'feminine' image on the cover, it 'types' the book.
Well, on tour I eat terribly, so I balance that by running a lot. And then I started to run with my fans in certain cities. It sounds very nerdy and un-rock n' roll, but I like it. It's fun, and it's better than meeting fans in weird, awkward circumstances. So I take them running with me.
This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It’s mostly pink. If you’re reading this book every night for months, something is not right.
If you have been wise and successful I congratulate you. Unless you are unable to forget how successful you have been, then I pity you.
You see a lot of bands and a lot of artists making that mistake: They become successful for doing something, and then they change everything. They change the people; they change the approach. And then, all of a sudden, almost the essence of what you do is gone.
The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, 'We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too.'
You go into the book store, there's the cut-out of Dr. Phil, and then the dreaded women's health section where every book, instead of the menopause book with the fanged Medusa head on the cover that might be more pertinent, you always see a flower and a poppy and a daisy and a stethoscope.
Sometimes I read the same books over and over and over. What's great about books is that the stuff inside doesn't change. People say you can't judge a book by its cover but that's not true because it says right on the cover what's inside. And no matter how many times you read that book the words and pictures don't change. You can open and close books a million times and they stay the same. They look the same. They say the same words. The charts and pictures are the same colors. Books are not like people. Books are safe.
There's nothing terribly wrong with The November Man in a serviceable late-night cable TV sort of way but neither is there anything terribly right about it. It's unnecessary and derivative.
Your first book is kind of a labor of ignorance. You don't realize the difficulty of it. Your second book is sort of a labor of fear. Then you sort of either hit a stride, or you don't.
A great comic-book cover occurs when it gets a potential reader to pick the book up and start thumbing through it. That's a comic cover's job: Attract someone's attention, and persuade them to try the issue out.
Bed and Breakfasts are really, really hard to run. You're the first one up and the last one to go to bed. You know, it really tested our strength. We became stronger from it - the whole experience from, you know, learning about it, sort of investing wise - money-wise, business-wise and then just pushing yourself. You know, it takes a lot of work to run a Bed and Breakfast. And then with a brand new baby, it triples.
Obviously it's easier when I' m doing the adapting myself. But my feeling is, your potential upside far outweighs the downside. Ultimately, they [moviemakers] can't change your book. Your book remains on the shelf the way you wrote it. If they make a great movie of your book, then you have the equivalent of millions and millions of dollars of advertising for your book. If the movie's not that good, that doesn't mean the book's not good. It doesn't change what you've already written. It has the potential to reach more people.
O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!