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" Every single one of my books had its title changed almost as we were going to press, for all sorts of different reasons. "
Susan Orlean
Single
Books
Different
Related Quotes:
" I had forgotten how thrilling a snow day is until my son started school, and as much as he loves it, he swoons at the idea of a free day arriving unexpectedly, laid out like a gift. "
Susan Orlean
Gift
Day
Free
" 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
Hands
Style
Chance
" 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
You
Me
Choice
" The genius of a folk melody or story is not the feeling that it's original but quite the opposite - the feeling that it has existed all along. "
Susan Orlean
Genius
Original
Story
" In an interesting inversion of status, the reigning breed in the dog park these days is the really-oddball-unidentifiable-mixed-breed-mutt-found-wandering-the-street or its equivalent. The stranger the mutt the better; the more peculiar the circumstance of it coming into your life, the better. "
Susan Orlean
Life
Park
Interesting
" 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
You
People
Know
" 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
Time
Thought
Myself
" Recently, I have come to assume that any call to my landline is from a telemarketer or an automated call from Terminex, letting me know that our regularly scheduled pest-extermination service will occur on its regular schedule. So I usually ignore my home phone. "
Susan Orlean
Ignore
Service
Home
" Oversized houses, like oversized cars, seem to be a particularly American fixation. "
Susan Orlean
Like
Seem
American
" 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
End
Feel
You
" 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
Easy
Sometimes
Time
" 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
Me
Child
Deep
" I've always been afraid of video games - not afraid that I wouldn't like them, but that I would like them too much, and that after mere seconds in front of any particularly bright and absorbing game, I would abandon all ambition, turn into a mouth-breathing zombie, and develop a wide, sofa-shaped rear end. "
Susan Orlean
Always
Video Games
Ambition
" I am of mixed minds about the issue of privacy. On one hand, I understand that information is power, and power is, well, power, so keeping your private information to yourself is essential - especially if you are a controversial figure, a celebrity, or a dissident. "
Susan Orlean
Power
Yourself
You
" When my son was born, and after a day of lying-in I was told that I could leave the hospital and take him home, I burst into tears. It wasn't the emotion of the moment: it was shock and horror. "
Susan Orlean
Day
Horror
Moment
" When a machine can do something better and faster than a person can, I am happy to let the machine do it. "
Susan Orlean
Person
Better
Happy
" 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
Stone
You
City
" I'm always mystified by the day-to-day workings of entities like Twitter that provide framework but not content, but I suppose it could be compared to the U.S. Postal Service, which manages to keep a lot of people employed doing lots of stuff other than writing letters. "
Susan Orlean
Writing
People
Content
" 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. "
Susan Orlean
You
Waiting
Love
" 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
Me
Sight
Space
" I would like to make sleeping my new hobby, except that I'm too tired, really, to have a hobby. But a girl can always dream. "
Susan Orlean
Girl
Always
Dream
" Why, I wonder, should the popularity of a news story matter to me? Does it mean it's a good story or just a seductive one? "
Susan Orlean
Story
Good
Matter
" Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space. "
Susan Orlean
World
Experience
Life
" 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
Me
Now
Surprise
" 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
Holiday
Kid
Nothing
" 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
Birthday
Down
Jewelry
" 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
College
Just
Know
" Everything rational and sensible abandons me when I try to throw out photographs. Time and time again, I hold one over a wastebasket, and then find it impossible to release my fingers and let the picture drop and disappear. "
Susan Orlean
Picture
Impossible
Find
" In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod, I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven't listened to in years. "
Susan Orlean
Myself
Music
Past
" 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
Culture
Advice
Wisdom