Top 40 Emily R. Austin Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Sometimes I wonder if I have really been the same person my whole life. I stare at the picture, and think: Is that really me? I have this bizarre feeling like I was a different person at every other stage of my life. I feel so removed from myself then. Sometimes I feel like I was a different person a month ago. A day. Five minutes. Now.”

— Emily R. Austin

2. “Whenever someone does something nice for me, I feel intensely aware of how strange and sad it is to know someone.”

— Emily R. Austin

3. “I can’t muster the energy required to be a positive part of anyone’s life. I can’t even muster the energy to apologize for that.”

— Emily R. Austin

4. “I am ready to feel happy, universe. Lay it on me. I am still waiting for the happiness I chose to kick in.”

— Emily R. Austin

5. “I feel simultaneously intensely insignificant and hyperaware of how important everyone is.”

— Emily R. Austin

6. “I came to the realization that every moment exists in perpetuity regardless of whether it’s remembered. What has happened has happened; it occupies that moment in time forever. I was an eleven-year-old girl lying in the grass one summer. I knew in that moment that was true and recognized that I would blaze through moments for the rest of my life, forgetting things, and becoming ages older, until I forgot everything – so I consoled myself by committing to remember that one moment.”

— Emily R. Austin

7. “I wonder if anyone really identifies as the adult they’ve morphed into. I remember being sixteen and feeling eleven. I remember thinking, how could I be a teenager? I remember finishing high school and thinking, am I grown now? Is this what it feels like? I feel the same as I did before.”

— Emily R. Austin

8. “My mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby. Every woman in my family before me lived to have a baby – just so that baby could grow up to have another baby. If I don’t have a baby, then all of those women reproduced just so that I could exist. I am the final product. I am the final baby.”

— Emily R. Austin

9. “I wonder what it’s like to be him. To vocalize the stupid thoughts he has without considering how others will interpret them. He just fumbles happily throughout his day, saying whatever he is compelled to – while I am over here laboring to produce appeasing facial expressions.”

— Emily R. Austin

10. “I asked myself, “Is there anything I want right now?” and then answered “fries.” I therefore decided to buy the fries instead of killing myself because that seemed logical. You shouldn’t kill yourself when you still want to eat.”

— Emily R. Austin

11. “Of course I’m a fraud. The fact that I’m able to carry myself through life without being crushed beneath the psychological weight of being alive proves that I’m a con artist. Aren’t we all con artists?”

— Emily R. Austin

12. “I find it so bizarre that I occupy space, and that I am seen by other people. I feel like I am falling through space and Eleanor just threw me a rose. It’s such a sweet, pointless gesture. It would be less devastating to fall through space alone, without someone else falling next to me. Whenever someone does something nice for me, I feel intensely aware of how strange and sad it is to know someone.”

— Emily R. Austin

13. “I have chosen happiness. Out of all the emotions set out on the table, I have selected it. It is by far the superior option. It’s insane to think I would have ever picked one of those shittier emotions before – when all the while, I could have chosen shiny, shimmering, iridescent happiness.”

— Emily R. Austin

14. “Losing someone to the Lord makes it sound like God steals people.”

— Emily R. Austin

15. “I don’t know her; I know the teenaged version of her. I’m at this party because I feel indebted as a friend to the shadow of the kid that she used to be. It’s strange I’m here at all.”

— Emily R. Austin

16. “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death. Yikes. Thank God this one doesn’t seem to apply to women either. I’m disappointed God is so homophobic that he forgot about lesbians, but I guess I would rather be forgotten than put to death.”

— Emily R. Austin

17. “I never know how to answer that question because I don’t feel like I am out. I feel like I am in a constant state of coming out, and like I always will be. I have to come out every time I meet someone.”

— Emily R. Austin

18. “I hear the woman say, “Oh, honey,” pacifyingly as tears begin to throw themselves off the cliff of my nose. “I’m fine,” I lie.”

— Emily R. Austin

19. “It turns out the crackers I stole are the body of Christ. After eating more than half the bag, I googled the cracker brand and learned that I paired marble Cracker Barrel cheese with God’s transubstantiated body. I had originally googled the crackers so I could leave them a review. I planned to write: BORING. Whoever created these is unimaginative. These crackers are tasteless and bland.”

— Emily R. Austin

20. “I wish that I find something distracting enough to occupy my mind with thoughts unrelated to the futility of my existence, or that I die in the least disruptive way possible for my family.”

— Emily R. Austin

21. “Despite both my car and my arm being broken, I am driving myself to the emergency room. I resolved not to involve an ambulance because I do not like to be a spectacle. I would rather be run over by another van than be surrounded by paramedics touching me inside such a conspicuous vehicle.”

— Emily R. Austin

22. “I glance at the small crowd of people surrounding me. Maybe we are like dogs. Everyone here is waiting for their drinks like trained animals. I look down at my hands, and then at the hands of the people around me. These are our paws. We are creatures.”

— Emily R. Austin

23. “There are a lot of things on earth that I think would be considered magic if they weren’t real. Dreaming, for example. The fact that babies are created inside of women’s bodies; the whole concept of conception. Castles. Trees. Whales. Lions. Birds. Rainbows. Water. The northern lights. Volcanos. Lightning. Fire.”

— Emily R. Austin

24. “I am eating an unsliced loaf of bread like an unsupervised goat in a bakery.”

— Emily R. Austin

25. “I am still waiting for the happiness I chose to kick in.”

— Emily R. Austin

26. “I wonder what it’s like to be him. To vocalize the stupid thoughts he has without considering how others will interpret them.”

— Emily R. Austin

27. “It’s strange people don’t like how their bodies look. It’s strange we waste any of our time concerning ourselves with how our skin drapes over our bones or how fat cultivates.”

— Emily R. Austin

28. “It’s easy for me to accept that I am bacteria, or a parasite, or cancer. It’s easy for me to accept that my life is trivial, and that I am a speck of dust. It is hard for me to accept that for the people around me, however. It’s hard for me to accept that my brother’s life doesn’t matter, or that old women who die don’t matter, or even that rabbits or cats don’t matter. I feel simultaneously intensely insignificant and hyperaware of how important everyone is.”

— Emily R. Austin

29. “I find it so bizarre that I occupy space, and that I am seen by other people.”

— Emily R. Austin

30. “My quietness is a consequence of my deeply entrenched nihilism. I don’t believe there is any real value in my or anyone else’s speaking, and I think that all of human existence is fundamentally unimportant.”

— Emily R. Austin

31. “I have this bizarre feeling like I was a different person at every other stage of my life. I feel so removed from myself then. Sometimes I feel like I was a different person a month ago. A day. Five minutes. Now.”

— Emily R. Austin

32. “She is deluded enough to assume that I could feel romantically for a person with a badly drawn dog tattooed to their arm.”

— Emily R. Austin

33. “Everything matters so much and so little; it is disgusting.”

— Emily R. Austin

34. “I think I am an impostor. Twenty-seven years ago I was a baby. Before that I was a clump of cells. Before that I didn’t exist. How could I be a bookstore clerk, or a Catholic, or a woman, or a person at all? I’m a life force contained in the deformed body of a baby. Of course I’m a fraud. The fact that I’m able to carry myself through life without being crushed beneath the psychological weight of being alive proves that I’m a con artist. Aren’t we all con artists?”

— Emily R. Austin

35. “I’ve always known I was gay, I think. Whenever I played with dolls, I’d make up romantic storylines about two girl Barbies. Before I even knew the word ‘gay,’ I knew I was gay.”

— Emily R. Austin

36. “I feel so profoundly inside of myself, I can’t stand it.”

— Emily R. Austin

37. “I wonder, why do we do this? We give each other rocks and wear expensive clothing to sign papers saying we will be someone’s partner until one of us dies. We involve the government.”

— Emily R. Austin

38. “I said I wonder if everyone’s an impostor. What if beneath every lawyer’s suit and every stay-at-home-parent’s apron, everyone is just a baby who doesn’t know what they’re doing? I wonder if anyone really identifies as the adult they’ve morphed into.”

— Emily R. Austin

39. “I am thinking about how enormous my thighs look pressed down on the concrete, while simultaneously thinking about how small I am in the grand scheme of things.”

— Emily R. Austin

40. “I have to push the sadness I feel about Grace and Rosemary and forgetful old women deep into the grottoes of my stomach, next to my thoughts about cats in house fires, because this is what it means to exist. This is how people stay alive.”

— Emily R. Austin