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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
New York
Writing
Great
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" 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
Tired
Try
Think
" I was never any good at remembering dates, but now I hardly have to. When the first bulb catalogs get delivered and the hens start laying again, that's all the notice I'll need to know that winter has passed. "
Susan Orlean
Know
Need
Now
" 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
" 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
" I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing. "
Susan Orlean
Writing
Reporting
Magazine
" 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
Other
Find
Work
" 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
Trade
Wild
Wild Animals
" There will always be vain, obsessive people who want to own rare and extraordinary things whatever the cost; there will always be people for whom owning beautiful, dangerous animals brings a sense of power and magic. "
Susan Orlean
Animals
Power
People
" 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
" 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
" It seems that half the point of being in Miami Beach - particularly the northern end of South Beach - is to be observed by people-watchers like me, and the display along Ocean Drive during my visit was, as always, sublime. "
Susan Orlean
Drive
Beach
Ocean
" Places like Hilton Head, with water adjacency and nice climates, are in high demand, and land values are insane. In the case of Hilton Head, which was developed in 1970 on what had been a mosquito- and alligator-infested swampy barrier island, land value has leaped from nearly zero to now unaffordable. "
Susan Orlean
Now
Nice
Island
" 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 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
" 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
" Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot. "
Susan Orlean
I Have Learned
Water
Chickens
" One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day. "
Susan Orlean
Snow
Best
Day
" One of my favorite activities as a teen-ager was to watch television over the phone with my best friend. "
Susan Orlean
Phone
Friend
Best Friend
" I am unusually Halloween-attentive, because, as it happens, I was born on Halloween, so for me it has always been an occasion of great moment. "
Susan Orlean
Born
Great
Halloween
" 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
" 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
" Borders had lousy management and made bad corporate decisions, so its fate is less like a terrible accident than a slow-motion slide into a ditch, but it's hard to be happy about a bookseller's demise. "
Susan Orlean
Decisions
Be Happy
Management
" I heard a computer scientist the other day refer to playing with the Kinect as 'storytelling.' At first I thought that sounded a little high-minded, but after trying a few games I could see what she meant. "
Susan Orlean
Day
Trying
Thought
" 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
" 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
Phone
Own
Rain
" 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
" 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
" 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
Fly
Attention
Long
" 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
Say
Think
You
" I rarely listen to commercial radio, and when I do, I'm shocked by how many ads there are, and how annoying they are, and how bad the radio station usually is. "
Susan Orlean
Commercial
Bad
Listen