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I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus.
Susan Orlean
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Susan Orlean
Age: 68
Born: 1955
Born: October 31
Journalist
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Class
Pleasure
Syllabus
Great
Deciding
Writing
Pleasures
University
York
Fiction
Teach
More quotes by Susan Orlean
Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.
Susan Orlean
The first thing I think about when I wake up most mornings is the fact that I'm tired. I have been tired for decades. I am tired in the morning and I am tired while becalmed in the slough of the afternoon, and I am tired in the evening, except right when I try to go to sleep.
Susan Orlean
I'm happy to be reminded that an ordinary day full of nothing but nothingness can make you feel like you've won the lottery.
Susan Orlean
There was a time when I kept track of it all when my mind worked like a giant lint brush being swept over the fuzzy surface of popular culture. But these days, pop culture seems to have gotten fuzzier and fuzzier notoriety comes and goes in the snap of a finger.
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
Buying a car used to be an experience so soul-scorching, so confidence-splattering, so existentially rattling that an entire car company was based on the promise that you wouldn't have to come in contact with it.
Susan Orlean
You may never learn the names of any of the people you talk to in a dog park, even after many, many hours spent there with them, and many hours of conversation. But if - knock on wood - anything should ever happen to your dog, these nameless non-strangers will rally, sympathize, offer to help, and hold your hand. I know this from experience.
Susan Orlean
I remember three- and four-week-long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy.
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.
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I have worked on PCs and on Macs and, while I have my preferences, I don't find it crippling to work on one rather than the other.
Susan Orlean
Now we're e-mailing and tweeting and texting so much, a phone call comes as a fresh surprise. I get text messages on my cell phone all day long, and it warbles to alert me that someone has sent me a message on Facebook or a reply or direct message on Twitter, but it rarely ever rings.
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
Among all life forms, there are creatures with charisma and creatures without. It's one of those ineffable qualities we can't quite define, but we all seem to respond similarly to.
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
Unlimited choice is paralyzing. The Internet has made this form of paralysis due to option overload a standard feature of comfortable modern life.
Susan Orlean
The one thing I've discovered about social media is that people love answering questions. In fact, it sometimes feels like at any given moment, millions of people are online who have been waiting for exactly the question you fire off.
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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
Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida
Susan Orlean
States should pass laws making it illegal to own or trade wild animals the phony 'educational' permits that many private owners have used to skirt those laws should be eliminated.
Susan Orlean
Being a good designer certainly doesn't guarantee that you're good at business. It's probably more surprising when the two talents coexist in one person.
Susan Orlean