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You Cannot Be A Prisoner Of Your Past Against Your Will. Because You Can Only Live In The Past Inside Your Mind.
-Augusten Burroughs
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You Cannot Be A

Augusten Burroughs
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You Cannot Be A Prisoner Of Your Past Against Your Will. Because You Can Only Live In The Past Inside Your Mind.

Understanding the Quote: "you cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. because..."

This quote by Augusten Burroughs reflects deeply on the theme of past. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Past, Mind, Your Past, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Augusten Burroughs interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Augusten Burroughs

Augusten Burroughs is celebrated for insightful thoughts on past and mind. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Past
Mind
Your Past
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I Loved Most When His Eyelashes Twitched And He Blinked, And Suddenly Happiness Was There Inside His Eyes. Unmistakable. Like A Single Word Printed On A Clean White Page.
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I Couldn't Help But Think, This Car Is Taking Me To A Mental Hospital And My Mother Is Treating It Like Open-mic Night At A Greenwich Village Café.
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I Can't Tell You How Much I Love Target And Costco, That Kind Of Culture, Because It's Something I Never Felt A Part Of. I've Always Felt Like A Tourist Because I Have Never Fit In Anywhere.
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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.
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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.
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I Just Look At Her And She Creeps Me Out. She Looks Like She Would Eat A Baby. Not That She's Fat. She Just Looks Hungry In Some Dangerous Way That Can't Be Explained. She's Always So Nice And Friendly. Exactly The Disposition Of A Baby Killer.
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A Lot Of People Can Be Afraid Of The Masking Because People Can Misrepresent Themselves [in The Internet] And They Can Pose As People They're Not. Well, Yeah; That's True. That's One Side Of It. But The Other Side Of It Is That It Equalizes You And If You Happen To Be A Person Who Is Not Equal In The Eyes Of The Greater Society That's A Damn Good Thing.
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(the New Boyfriend) Knows I Write Every Day For Hours But Has No Idea That All I’m Writing About Is Me. It Seems Wiser To Let Him Think I’m An Aspiring Novelist Instead Of Just An Alcoholic With A Year Of Sobriety Who Spends Eight Hours A Day Writing About The Other 16.
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I Never Could Have Written The Screenplay Because I Would Have Been Forced To Learn New Software And I Can't Learn One More Thing.
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Perfection Is The Satin-lined Casket Of Creativity And Originality. If You Are A Perfectionist, At Least Stop Telling Everybody You're One And Try To Get Over It Yourself, Alone In Your Home With The Lights Off
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Suicide
Morning
Self Harm
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Thinking
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The Schnauzer Listens To Jazz. I Listen To Jazz Because He Likes It, And I Have Even Gone To Jazz Concerts With Him, But Truthfully I Would Rather Listen To Retarded Children Pounding On Pan Lids With Wooden Spoons.
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People
World
He's A Really Nice Guy, If Only I Weren't Me.
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Guy
Ifs
If You Find You Require Willpower, You Aren't Ready To Lose Weight.
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God, I Felt Certain, Did Not Mind That I Didn’t Press My Hands Together To Pray. I Was Casual, But I Was Sincere. I Knew That God Existed As The Correct Answer Inside My Chest.
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Mind
Together
Bad News Should Be Followed With Soup. Then A Nap.
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Soup
News
The Past Doesn't Haunt Us, We Haunt The Past.
Past
My Mother Is From Cairo, Georgia. This Makes Everything She Says Sound Like It Went Through A Curling Iron.
Mother
Iron
Sound
What I Really Want Is To Sit Next To Someone Under An L.l. Bean Blanket On The Beach In The Fall And Drink Coffee From The Same Mug. I Don't Want Some Rusty '73 Ford Pinto With A Factory-defective Gas Tank That Causes It To Explode When It's Rear-ended In The Parking Lot Of The Supermarket. So Why Do I Keep Looking For Pintos?
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Fall
I Thought, I Can't Do Advertising Any More, So I Was Downloading All These Pdf Applications From Community Colleges. And I Thought, I'll Become A Paramedic. I'll Get A Two-year Associate Degree, If I Can Get In.
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Years
Two
When I Ate Vanilla Frosting Straight From The Can, I Could Feel God Standing Right Nest To Me Like A Real Best Friend, Watching, And Smiling, And Wishing He Had A Mouth.
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Mouths
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Overcoming
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Think Of The Actual Physical Elements That Compose Our Bodies: We Are 98 Percent Hydrogen And Oxygen And Carbon. That's Table Sugar. You Are Made Of The Same Stuff As Table Sugar. Just A Couple Of Tiny Differences Here And There And Look What Happened To The Sugar: It Can Stand Upright And Send Tweets.
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Thinking
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Sleep
Glasses
There 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.
Writing
People
Interesting
Stars Should Not Be Seen Alone. That's Why There Are So Many. Two People Should Stand Together And Look At Them. One Person Alone Will Surely Miss The Good Ones.
Stars
Two
People
What Nobody Understood Then Is This: The Only Way That You Achieve What You Want And Fulfill Your Dreams And Become Great Is By Demanding That Sort Of Attention. You Have To Make It Happen.
Dream
Attention
Want
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.
Acceptance
One Direction
Swings
It Turned Out I Had Always Been A Smoker. I Just Hadn't Had Any Cigarettes.
Cigarette
Smokers
Optimism Sprouts From The Knowledge That You Are In Control Of Your Own Life, Not Your Past And Not Those Around You. Part Of Being In Control Is Taking Responsibility For How You Feel. This Means Not Just Admitting To Uncomfortable Feelings But Then Examining Your Circumstances To See What Can Be Done To Change These Feelings At The Source.
Mean
Responsibility
Past
If You Hate Your Life, You Haven't' Seen Enough Of It. If You Hate Your Life, It's Because Your Life Is Too Small And Doesn't' Fit You.
Hate
Life Is
Fit
Real Optimism Is Not The Pep Talk You Give Yourself. It Is Earned Through The Labor Involved In Emotional Housekeeping.
Real
Emotional
Giving
I Think That The Internet Is Our Most Profound And Beautiful Achievement. It Is Magnificent. We Have The Internet As A Layer Of Our Thinking That Doesn't Control Us, We Control It, Yet We Don't Have To Be Aware Of It. It Will Be Like A Suit That Really Fits Well.
Beautiful
Thinking
Profound
My Subconscious Does The Writing; I Don't Have Control Over That.
Writing
Doe
Subconscious
I'm Not Going To Waste My Energy Looking Into The Eyes Of Someone Like The Guy Who Blew My Legs Off Trying To Find A Way To Forgive Him For Doing Something That Horrible When There Are Way More Productive Ways I Could Be Spending My Life. You've Got To Focus On Moving On.
Moving
Eye
Focus
I Was Struck With A Bolt Of Distilled Horror Like I Have Never Known Before. Far Worse Than Suddenly Finding Yourself Walking Through A Prison Cafeteria Wearing Daisy Duke Shorts And A Jane Fonda Headband.
Finding Yourself
Cafeteria
Dukes
The Secret To Being A Writer Is That You Have To Write. It's Not Enough To Think About Writing Or To Study Literature Or Plan A Future Life As An Author. You Really Have To Lock Yourself Away, Alone, And Get To Work.
Writing
Thinking
Secret
No Matter Your Spiritual Beliefs, If You Hold Any, The Answer Is The Same: Sometimes, Why Is Not Knowable. If You Open The Refrigerator Door And A Tub Of Kozy Shack Tapioca Pudding Tumbles Out And Splats Open Onto The Floor, You Clean It. You Don’t Stand There And Question Why It Happened, How It Was Possible. Why Doesn’t Matter Now.
Spiritual
Doors
Pudding
His Laugh Is Made If Porch Swings And Lemonade
Swings
Laughing
Made
The Truth Is That Nobody Is Owed An Apology For Anything. Apologies Are Lovely When They Happen. But They Change Nothing. They Do Not Reverse Actions Or Correct Damage. They Are Merely Nice To Hear.
Nice
Apology
Lovely
I Was In Advertising For Years. That Was Cushy, You Know? It's Pretty Cushy In A Lot Of Ways, But I Hated It.
Years
Way
Advertising
I Don't Read Memoirs. But If You Write A Memoir, I Would Think You'd Want People To Know, "o.k., Look, I've Taken Some Liberties Here." It's Just A Matter Of Being Open With Your Readers.
Taken
Writing
Thinking
The Most Mortifying Fact Of My Life Is Something That Happened When I Was Fourteen And I Have Never Admitted To Anyone: Not To Friends Nor Therapists; Not Even In Rehab When We Were Detailing Our Own Personal Spirals Of Shame Did I Confess. It Is This: I Am A Graduate Of The Barbizon School Of Modeling.
School
Rehab
Facts
I Like, Though, That People Have A Hunger To Connect With Other People. They're Desperate To Know That You're Not Lying To Them Or Misleading Them.
Lying
People
Hunger
You Would Be Amazed By What You Can Give Up, Lose, Or Break, And Yet Still Be A Person Who Gets Happy Over Brownies.
Happiness
Giving Up
Would Be
I Never Question The Way I Write. Writing Is The Only Thing That's Without Seams For Me. It's An Effort To Talk Because My Pictures Have To Be Turned Into These Sounds. It's An Effort To Be Alive. It's Work. But Writing Is Wonderful.
Writing
Effort
Alive
There's Not Enough Of Me Left Over.
Enough
Left
So That's What I'm Here To Become. And Suddenly, This Word Fills Me With A Brand Of Sadness I Haven't Felt Since Childhood. The Kind Of Sadness You Feel At The End Of Summer. When The Fireflies Are Gone, The Ponds Have Dried Up And The Plants Are Wilted, Weary From Being So Green.
Summer
Sadness
Firefly
Part Of Me Believes That Love Is More Valuable When You Have To Work For It.
Believe
Love Is
Valuable
I Feel Like They Are Two Different Things, And When I Write Books, They're Just Books. If They Can Be Movies That's Okay. But I Would Write A Novel That Couldn't Be A Film.
Book
Writing
Two
Maybe It Was A Patty Hearst Thing. Stockholm Syndrome Or Whatever It's Called When You're Being Held Against Your Will But Then You Become Sucked In And Fall In Love. Or If Not Exactly Love, You Fall Into Something You Can't See Out Of. 'i Can't Shoot A Machine Gun' Becomes 'hey, This Hardly Has Any Kick-back!
Falling In Love
Love You
Gun
As A Writer, You Can't Allow Yourself The Luxury Of Being Discouraged And Giving Up When You Are Rejected, Either By Agents Or Publishers. You Absolutely Must Plow Forward.
Giving Up
Writing
Luxury
I Am Prone To Envy. It Is One Of My Three Default Emotions, The Others Being Greed And Rage. I Have Also Experienced Compassion And Generosity, But Only Fleetingly And Usually While Drunk, So I Have Little Memory.
Memories
Compassion
Drunk
I Missed Him So Much That I Had Physical Sensations Of Loss, All Over My Body. Like One Minute I Was Missing An Arm, The Next My Spleen. It Was Making Me Feel Sick, Like Throwing Up.
Loss
Sick
Missing
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.
Moving
Needs
Done
A Lot Of Being A Writer Doesn't Have Anything To Do With Writing. It's Ironic - I Have To Squeeze The Books In, Even Though That's What It's All About.
Book
Writing
Ironic
After I Got My Coffee, I Leaned Against A Stop Sign And Sipped, Pretending It Was A Normal Day And I Was Only Up This Early So That I Could Go Running And Not Because I'd Just Been On A Killing Spree.
Running
Coffee
Normal
When People Meet Me, Many Times They're Very Surprised Because They Expect Someone Who Is Kind Of Wacky With Seven Piercings And Very Hip And Cool And New York City, And I'm Not.
New York
Cities
People
Writing Has Enriched My Life In Ways I Never Imaged.
Writing
Way
In General, Advertising Isn't A "creative" Atmosphere. It's A Business Atmosphere And Your Job Is Puzzle Solving. My Favorite Aspect Of The Business, I Guess, Was Presenting To Clients. What I Enjoyed Least Were The Clients. Worried Corporate Brand Managers, Trying To Dumb-down Their Ads For The Stupid American Population. I Hated The Disrespect That These People Had For "consumers."
Jobs
Stupid
People
He Continues To Smile Expectantly. I Take A Step Back. I Don't Want To Catch Whatever He Has. He Is A Disturbing Out-of-uniform Santa.
Smile
Steps
Santa
My Only Ritual Is To Just Sit Down And Write, Write Every Day.
Writing
Down And
Ritual
Not Crazy In A 'let's Paint The Kitchen Bright Red!' Sort Of Way. But Crazy In A 'gas Oven, Toothpaste Sandwich, I Am God' Sort Of Way. Gone Were The Days When She Would Stand On The Deck Lighting Lemon-scented Candles Without Then Having To Eat The Wax.p28
Crazy
Kitchen
Gone
There's Never A False Note In A Berg Novel.
Notes
Novel
The More Obsessed One Is With Getting Thin, The More Certain It Becomes That One Will Never Get There.
Obsessed
Certain
I Think I Love Him, But I Also Think That You Can Love People Who Aren't Good For You.
I Love Him
Thinking
People
When You Have Your Health, You Have Everything. When You Do Not Have Your Health, Nothing Else Matters At All.
Matter
This Is What You Should Know About Losing Someone You Love. They Do Not Travel Alone. You Go With Them.
Losing Someone
Someone You Love
Should
The Most I Would Do Was Use The Shadow Tool In Photoshop To Bring Out The Muscular Rips In My Stomach, Which Were Honestly There. Beneath The Fat.
Rip
Shadow
Tools
But I Can Also Write In Crappy Motel Rooms, While Standing In Line, Or Sitting In The Dentist's Chair.
Writing
Sitting
Lines
But I Am Not Here Ironically; I Am Here Sincerely.
Sincerely
I Gazed Around The Room And My Eyes Stopped Dead On A Little Boy Standing In The Corner. This Was A Particularly Eerie Doll. Life-sized And Blond-haired And Blue-eyed. I Saw A Little Nazi Boy, Pockets Probably Stuffed With Scissors And Retractable Blades. My Grandfather On My Mother's Side Was Rumored To Be Half Jewish, Which Practically Makes Me Jerry Seinfeld's Brother, And Thus Wary Of Blond German Boys With Their Hands Out Of Sight.
Mother
Brother
Eye
Freshly Brainwashed From Rehab, I Carry The Bottle Into The Bathroom. I Hold It Up To The Light. See The Pretty Bottle? Isn't It Beautiful? Yes, It's Beautiful. I Unscrew The Cap And Pour It Into The Toilet. I Flush Twice. And Then I Think, Why Did I Flush Twice? The Answer, Is Of Course, Because I Truly Do Know Myself. I Cannot Be Sure I Won't Attempt To Drink From The Toilet, Like A Dog.
Beautiful
Dog
Thinking
I Don't Sit Down At Nine In The Morning And Begin Writing And Then Take A Break For Lunch And Stop At Four. I Have No Structure Like That. I Am At My Computer Constantly, More Or Less Attached To It. I Live On-line And Hate Being Off-line And Don't Care How Unhealthy It Is.
Morning
Hate
Writing
I Don't Think Writers - In General - Ever Achieve The Fame Of Movie Stars. For The Simple Reason That Only A Fraction Of The Population Reads. But I Guess There Are Exceptions.
Stars
Simple
Thinking
You Need To Grab Your Dream Out Of The Sky Like It's A Kite And Pinch The String Through Your Fingers Until You Reach The Spool.
Dream
Sky
Needs
No Matter How Huge Your Loss, As Long As You Remain Engaged With Your Life, The Best Days Of Your Life May Still Be Ahead Of You. Don't Misunderstand Me: The Pain Of Your Loss Will Remain With You For The Rest Of Your Life. But Great Joy Will Be There Right Beside It. Deep Sorrow And Deep Joy Can Exist Within You, Side By Side. At Every Moment. And It's Not Confusing. And It's Not A Conflict.
Pain
Loss
Long
You Cannot Be A Prisoner Of Your Past Against Your Will. Because You Can Only Live In The Past Inside Your Mind.
Past
Mind
Your Past
It 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.
Running
Dog
House
The Past Does Not Haunt Us. We Haunt The Past. We Allow Our Minds To Focus In That Direction. We Open Memories And Examine Them. We Reexperience Emotions We Felt During The Painful Events We Experienced Because We Are Recalling Them In As Much Detail As We Can.
Memories
Past
Focus
I Was Learning That If I Lived Slightly In The Future-what Will Happen Next-i Didn't Have To Feel So Much About What Was Going On In The Present.
Next
Feels
Happens
I Read A Lot Of Science Books - I Love Cosmology, Quantum Theory, Particle Physics. So My Idea Of A Great Read Would Probably Put You Directly Into A Coma.
Book
Ideas
Physics
The Line Between Normal And Crazy Seemed Impossibly Thin. A Person Would Have To Be An Expert Tightrope Walker In Order Not To Fall.
Crazy
Fall
Order
I Could Write Another Collection Of Personal Essays From What Has Happened To Me In The Last Year Alone. I Don't Seek Out My Material - It Finds Me. I Am Magnetic, Somehow.
Writing
Years
Lasts
Each Time My Mother Went Psychotic, I Hoped It Would Be The Last Time. Afterward She Would Tell Me, 'i Think That Was The Final Episode. I Think I Had A Breakthrough.' And I Would Believe-for A Few Months-that It Was True. That She Was Back To Stay. Maybe It Was Like Having A Rock Star Mother Who Was Always On The Road. Were There Benatar Children? Did They Sit Around And Wonder If Their Mom's Hell Is For Children Tour Was Going To Be Her Last Tour?
Music
Mom
Mother
The Thing For Someone Just Starting Off [in Writing] Is To Write. You Need To Have Limber Fingers, Whether You Write With Your Fingers Or You Type On Your Laptop, But You Need To Have A Limber Mind And You Need To Be Able To Write Without Judging What You've Written, At Least Right Away, And Without Editing Right Away.
Writing
Editing
Judging
I Know Exactly How That Is. To Love Somebody Who Doesn't Deserve It.
Knows
Deserve
It’s A Wonder I’m Even Alive. Sometimes I Think That. I Think That I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Killed Myself. But There’s Something In Me That Just Keeps Going On. I Think It Has Something To Do With Tomorrow, That There Is Always One, And That Everything Can Change When It Comes.
Believe
Thinking
Alive
Self-pity Is The Bestiality Of Emotions: It Absolutely Disgusts People. When You're Feeling Pity For Yourself, And Somebody Says To You 'you Think Maybe It's Time For The Pity Party To Be Over? You Should Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself And Try To Think Positive,' It Makes You Wish You Could Saw Their Head Off.
Sorry
Party
Thinking
Everybody In Recovery Smokes. If You Don't Like Smoking, Don't Even Bother Trying To Get Sober. Just Stay Drunk.
Recovery
Drunk
Smoking
The Problem With Not Having Anybody To Tell You What To Do, I Understood, Is That There Was Nobody To Tell You What Not To Do.
Problem
Scissors
Understood
In Some Ways, Blogging Is Like Drinking - It Gives A Person Permission To Be A Total Asshole.
Drinking
Giving
Way
Thanksgiving Was Nothing More Than A Pilgrim-created Obstacle In The Way Of Christmas; A Dead Bird In The Street That Forced A Brief Detour.
Christmas
Bird
Detours
And I Hope She Does Not Live In A Dark World. Because Even The Most Terrible Loss Doesn't Have To Make You Darker; It Can Make You Deeper.
Loss
Dark
Doe
I Used To Feel So Alone In The City. All Those Gazillions Of People And Then Me, On The Outside. Because How Do You Meet A New Person? I Was Very Stunned By This For Many Years. And Then I Realized, You Just Say, "hi." They May Ignore You. Or You May Marry Them. And That Possibility Is Worth That One Word.
Years
Cities
People
After Was Better. Before Was Only There So After Could Happen.
Happens
Throwing Things Horrified Me. I Suffered Extreme, Paralyzing Anxiety When It Came To Anything Remotely Athletic. I Wouldn't Even Run To Catch The School Bus Because I Knew I'd Trip And Then Get Teased For A Year.
Running
School
Years
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