Quote

Who on earth is going to use 'utilize' in a text message, a whopping seven characters including the always-hard-to-type 'z,' when you can say the exact same thing in three characters? I can't think of a sentence in which 'use' can't replace 'utilize.'

Susan Orlean

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Susan Orlean
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: October 31
Journalist
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Think
Use
Sentence
Thinking
Three
Sentences
Earth
Message
Character
Messages
Whopping
Hard
Including
Utilize
Thing
Seven
Replace
Going
Characters
Text
Always
Type
Exact

More quotes by Susan Orlean

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Most fourth graders can't say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.
Susan Orlean
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I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of 'student-athletes.' I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don't believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that's another story.
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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.
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Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida
Susan Orlean
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Here's a habit I never thought I'd develop: I gravitate to anything online that's marked 'most popular' or 'most e-mailed.' And I hate myself a little bit every time I do.
Susan Orlean
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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.
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Sometimes I'm dazzled by how modern and fabulous we are, and how easy everything can be for us that's the gilded glow of technology, and I marvel at it all the time.
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I've loved some gadgets that were not worthy, and I've loved gadgets that I would have loved more if I had waited for their developers to figure out how to really make them work, but I loved them anyway.
Susan Orlean
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I've tried a lot of different apps to manage Twitter on my phone (I use Hootsuite on my laptop), but I think the official Twitter app is really good.
Susan Orlean
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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
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One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.
Susan Orlean
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What's funny is that the idea of popularity - even the use of the word 'popular' - is something that had been mostly absent from my life since junior high. In fact, the hallmark of life after junior high seemed to be the shedding of popularity as a central concern.
Susan Orlean
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When I was a kid, Halloween was strictly a starchy-vegetable-only holiday, with pumpkins and Indian corn on the front stoop there was nothing electric, nothing inflatable, nothing with latex membranes or strobes.
Susan Orlean
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I would argue that it might be easier to endure loneliness than to endure the idea that you might disappear.
Susan Orlean
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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
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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
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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
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Sense of smell, of course, is only one of those dog qualities that can't be replicated or improved upon. I've been researching dogs in warfare for my book about 'Rin Tin Tin,' and I've read many accounts of their heroics: carrying messages through battle, alerting troops to enemy planes, and even parachuting behind enemy lines.
Susan Orlean
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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
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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