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" 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
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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
Parcel
Realize
Out
" You could go crazy thinking of how unprivate our lives really are - the omnipresent security cameras, the tracking data on our very smart phones, the porous state of our Internet selves, the trail of electronic crumbs we leave every day. "
Susan Orlean
Smart
Thinking
Day
" 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
" 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
" The thing is, I have a zillion apps, and I'm always looking for the perfect arrangement for them, so scrambling my home screen is part of that eternal quest. "
Susan Orlean
Home
Always
Looking
" 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
" 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
" 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 don't care that much about rote memorization. An old boyfriend of mine used to get into lacerating arguments with his parents over facts, and I used to watch on in mute astonishment. How could anyone actually argue about something that could be looked up? "
Susan Orlean
Over
Parents
Watch
" I once had a boyfriend who couldn't write unless he was wearing a necktie and a dress shirt, which I thought was really weird, because this was a long time ago, and no one I knew ever wore dress shirts, let alone neckties; it was like he was a grown-up reenacter or something. "
Susan Orlean
Weird
Alone
Dress
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
Experience
Children
Persistence
" 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
" A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder. "
Susan Orlean
Day
Snow
Wonder
" 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
" 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
" I work at home, in the country, and days will go by when, except for my husband and son and the occasional UPS man, the only sentient creatures that see me are my chickens and turkeys. "
Susan Orlean
Me
Home
Husband
" 'Brave' is one of those words that has been bleached of most of its meaning these days, thanks to far too many appearances in the glaring light of ad slogans and corporate public relations. I never thought about anything as brave anymore; it just seemed like a flabby, glib cliche. "
Susan Orlean
Light
Thought
Words
" 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
" I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing. "
Susan Orlean
Writing
Reporting
Magazine
" 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
" 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
" Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school. "
Susan Orlean
Law
Writing
Three
" 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