Top 60 Emily R. Austin Quotes (2026 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 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

5. “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

6. “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

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

— Emily R. Austin

8. “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

9. “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

10. “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

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “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

15. “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

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

— Emily R. Austin

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

— Emily R. Austin

18. “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

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 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

21. “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

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

— 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. “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

25. “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

26. “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

27. “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

28. “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

29. “I am thinking about how these have always been my hands. I was born with them. I used to hold bottles, blocks, crayons. Everything I have ever eaten. Every book I have ever read. Everything I have ever touched has been with these appendages. I will never have any other hands but these.”

— Emily R. Austin

30. “I worry that I am a shell for something bad. That deep down, in the spot where most people keep their souls, I keep a weird little bug. I picture him there, leaning on the apple core of my soul, crunching on what remains of what’s good of me.”

— Emily R. Austin

31. “The thing is,” child-me continues, “ghosts aren’t any more scary than people are. Think about it. Ghosts just used to be people. Some people are really scary, like murderers, and bullies.”

— Emily R. Austin

32. “Sometimes, when things are broken, I find they fix themselves if you just pretend that they are fine and give them time.”

— Emily R. Austin

33. “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

34. “I think one of the benefits of growing up with a sibling is having a witness. It’s nice to have someone to cross-reference your childhood with.”

— Emily R. Austin

35. “Whenever I see my mom watching her food cook in the oven, I sit next to her and look in. You can’t kill yourself in modern ovens. Well, I’m sure you could. You could kill yourself with anything if you tried hard enough. When we sit there, though, I feel like we are moths drawn to the memory of what an oven can do to sad women.”

— Emily R. Austin

36. “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

37. “She just confidently asked a waitress for something. It takes me 5 minutes or more of mentally reciting what I will say before I even look at a waitress. I once ate an entire rack of ribs when I had ordered a tomato sandwich.”

— 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 hate my voice. I hate the words I choose. I hate my instincts and the way I think. I hate that I am self-absorbed enough to hate myself in detail. I think I am a bad person. I feel self-loathing so deeply I think if I cracked myself open, I would see the physical manifestation of it calcified in my bones like a geode.”

— Emily R. Austin

40. “I’m not interested in making small talk with people who offend or insult me.”

— Emily R. Austin

41. “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

42. “I wish I could have one nice interaction with everyone and then disappear.”

— Emily R. Austin

43. “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

44. “It’s actually sort of soothing to think of how massive the universe is, and how I could be snuffed out at any minute. I guess I like tricking my brain into disarming things.”

— Emily R. Austin

45. “I wanted to stay on the boat I was on. I felt like I had just gotten on it. I didn’t feel ready to hop onto a new one yet.”

— Emily R. Austin

46. “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

47. “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

48. “I’m not sure there is a way to be alive without upsetting people. We’re all in this web together, aren’t we? Everything we do tangles everybody else together.”

— Emily R. Austin

49. “It’s difficult enough pretending to be a straight Catholic; I can’t pull off being a straight, sick Catholic. It’s too much.”

— Emily R. Austin

50. “I get this desperate feeling sometimes. Like I’m a kid banging inside the cage of my adult body, dying to escape to the moon.”

— Emily R. Austin