Susan Orlean Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“Writers like to write, and writing in different forms - short, long, bite-sized, done on the fly, done with painstaking attention - all interest me.”

“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.”

“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.”