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I want a chainsaw very badly, because I think cutting down a tree would be unbelievably satisfying. I have asked for a chainsaw for my birthday, but I think I'll probably be given jewelry instead.
Susan Orlean
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Susan Orlean
Age: 68
Born: 1955
Born: October 31
Journalist
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Instead
Chainsaw
Tree
Unbelievably
Probably
Jewelry
Given
Badly
Would
Satisfying
Think
Birthday
Thinking
Asked
Cutting
More quotes by Susan Orlean
I might have missed my calling as an editor. In the spring, the sight of my empty garden beds gives me the horticultural equivalent of writers' block: So much space! So many plants to choose among, and yet none of them seem quite right!
Susan Orlean
The iPhone calendar isn't bad, but it isn't great, either. It only offers a day view and a month view - it doesn't have a week view, which drives me crazy.
Susan Orlean
Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.
Susan Orlean
Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida
Susan Orlean
College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids.
Susan Orlean
I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus.
Susan Orlean
Having animals in the city is entirely different from having animals out in the country. For one thing, it's more social. When you live on lots of acres without neighbors within a stone's throw, your dog-walks are usually solitary rambles over hill and dale.
Susan Orlean
The fact that dogs are not people means you don't have as much response to the particulars.
Susan Orlean
We do a lot of bird-watching up in the country, but we almost never have a chance to people-watch. There simply aren't enough human beings up here: there is nowhere you can park yourself with a cup of coffee and observe the species on parade.
Susan Orlean
When I was a kid, phone calls were a premium commodity only the very coolest kids had a phone line of their own, and long-distance phone calls were made after eleven, when the rates went down, unless you were flamboyant with your spending. Then phone calls became as cheap as dirt and as constant as rain, and I was on the phone all the time.
Susan Orlean
Parents, it seems, have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.
Susan Orlean
I finally overcame my phobia, and now I approach flying with a sort of studied boredom - a learned habit, thanks to my learn-to-fly-calmly training - but like all former flying phobics, I retain a weird and feverish fascination with aviation news, especially bad news.
Susan Orlean
I don't turn to greeting cards for wisdom and advice, but they are a fine reflection of the general drift of the culture.
Susan Orlean
When it comes to consumer electronics, I'm a big fat sucker, because even though I know you should never, ever buy anything until the second version of it is released, I just can't resist. I live in a state of perpetual Beta.
Susan Orlean
Oversized houses, like oversized cars, seem to be a particularly American fixation.
Susan Orlean
I wonder what book signings will be like when most of the books we read are electronic. Will authors sign something else? A flyer, perhaps? A special kind of card devised for the purpose?
Susan Orlean
Writers like to write, and writing in different forms - short, long, bite-sized, done on the fly, done with painstaking attention - all interest me.
Susan Orlean
I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.
Susan Orlean
Writing about fashion forces you to overcome the nagging feeling that fashion doesn't matter, that it's trivial or fleeting. I just look at it anthropologically, which is different from the way I'd write about art.
Susan Orlean
I think coexisting with another life form is a very rich experience. It's why people keep plants and animals.
Susan Orlean