AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I love to both give and receive very old books.

I was on the cover of a lot of newspapers. I was on the cover of USA Today for every single day for a month. I was on the masthead, so I tend to get recognized a lot, and in weird places. It's always flattering, and it's always odd. It's always at the worst possible time.

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.

I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

There's never a false note in a Berg novel.

I never listen to music when I write.

My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective.

Reading takes solitude and it takes focus.

Because I've lived in one room my entire life, working at the same table that you use to pay bills at and eat at. It's going to be nice to have actual space.

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

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.

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little childhood. Unfortunately, that's just not what happened.

I've just finished my next collection, Possible Side Effects, and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.

Marriage is overdone. As long as there are people, people are going to find it interesting.

With my own memoirs, they are truthful, and I write everything fully expecting to some day end up televised on Court TV, and I'm fully prepared to be challenged legally on it.

I was in advertising for years. That was cushy, you know? It's pretty cushy in a lot of ways, but I hated it.

My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write every day.

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

I'm always prepared for the worst. I was prepared to have the book come out, sell seven copies, and have to keep working in advertising, so it was just great that it was received so well and by such a huge audience.

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.

I think writers tend to be experience junkies, and I think they also tend to want to be on the outside looking in.

I'm like the guy who prepares your taxes or a dentist. I'm very conservative and boring in a lot of ways.