Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
High
Word
Life
" 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
Like
Over
Mind
" 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
" 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
" 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
Say
Bad
Google
" The iPhone calendar isn't bad, but it isn't great, either. It only offers a day view and a month view - it doesn't have a week view, which drives me crazy. "
Susan Orlean
Great
Day
Crazy
" I remember, when I was a kid, watching my mother jam herself into her girdle - a piece of equipment so rigid it could stand up on its own - and I remember her coming home from fancy parties and racing upstairs to extricate herself from its cruel iron grip. "
Susan Orlean
Remember
Stand Up
Stand
" 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
" 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
" 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
" Dog parks are more cliquish than any other human gathering with the possible exception of seventh grade. Deal with it. "
Susan Orlean
Gathering
Possible
Human
" 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
" There are cultures that believe having your photograph taken steals your soul. I don't think there is a stolen soul in a picture, but still - why is it so hard to throw them away? "
Susan Orlean
Soul
Why
Hard
" I went to a football school, which meant that I went to a university that served up education and was simultaneously operating a sports franchise. "
Susan Orlean
Football
Education
Up
" 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
" 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
" Human relationships used to be easy: you had friends, boy- or girlfriends, parents, children, and landlords. Now, thanks to social media, it's all gone sideways. "
Susan Orlean
Children
Media
Parents
" 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
Good
Phone
Different
" They will be given as gifts; books that are especially pretty or visual will be bought as hard copies; books that are collectible will continue to be collected; people with lots of bookshelves will keep stocking them; and anyone who likes to make notes in books will keep buying books with margins to fill. "
Susan Orlean
Will
People
Keep
" 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
" 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
" 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'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
" 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
" 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
Believe
Sports
Story
" There are many bad things in this world of ours, but the use of the word 'monetize' has to rank high among them. Also, 'incentivize.' Actually, all the '-ize' words, like 'contextualize' and 'utilize' and 'prioritize.' And - this is almost too horrible to type - 'juniorize.' "
Susan Orlean
Like
Horrible
High
" 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
" Oversized houses, like oversized cars, seem to be a particularly American fixation. "
Susan Orlean
Like
Seem
American
" 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
" 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