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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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Susan Orlean
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: October 31
Journalist
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Work
Parent
Olympian
Lines
Suggesting
Almost
Persistence
Comes
Actual
Experience
Secure
Seems
Profession
Children
Notion
Writing
Parents
Lucrative

More quotes by Susan Orlean

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The fact that dogs are not people means you don't have as much response to the particulars.
Susan Orlean
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I've noticed lately that it seems most intimate to not use any closing on your e-mail at all, because it seems to make it feel like you are engaged in an ongoing conversation - as if this one e-mail doesn't represent the beginning and end of the interaction but is just part of a perpetual loop of friendly back-and-forth.
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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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
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I wish I had coined the phrase 'tyranny of choice,' but someone beat me to it. The counterintuitive truth is that have an abundance of options does not make you feel privileged and indulged too many options make you feel like all of them are wrong, and that you are wrong if you choose any of them.
Susan Orlean
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I've used Twitter now and again to try to figure something out it's an amazing resource. But I think you have to use it judiciously: it's a self-selected group, so it's important not to start thinking of it as the whole world.
Susan Orlean
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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
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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
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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.
Susan Orlean
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You can find out anything you want about a car now, and especially every bit of information about the price, without relying on the dealers.
Susan Orlean
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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
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I didn't want to talk, and I didn't think dogs could solve my problems. But they were so uncritical and un-judgmental. Sometimes when you're really blue, you don't want to talk, but you want that sense of companionship. I certainly enjoy that with my beasts.
Susan Orlean
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In my perfect world, we would establish perhaps four national zoos of unimpeachable quality and close the rest of them.
Susan Orlean
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When I heard about the Microsoft Kinect, though, I felt an urgency rising in me. A game you played without touching any machinery? A chance to wave your hands around, Minority-Report style, and move things around on a screen? This sounded like almost too much fun, with gadget-y pizzazz that sounded astonishing.
Susan Orlean
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It is hard to imagine Thomas Kinkade as anything less than supremely self-assured.
Susan Orlean
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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
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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
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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
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I think part of a hero construct is overcoming loss, or being abandoned, or having to make your own way in the world.
Susan Orlean
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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.
Susan Orlean