Susan Orlean Quotes

126 quotes in 2243 categories

• The first thing I think about when I wake up most mornings is the fact that I'm tired.
• 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…
• You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.
• Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida
• I would argue that it might be easier to endure loneliness than to endure the idea that you might disappear.
• I think the real reason is that life has no meaning. I mean, no obvious meaning. You wake up, you go to work, you do…
• Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.
• The old orchid hunter lay back on his pillow, his body limp... 'You'll curse the insects,' he said at least, 'and you'll curse the natives...…
• Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.
• I never thought very many people in the world were very much like John Laroche, but I realized more and more that he was only…
• Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.
• When you're researching you're learning. When you're writing, you're teaching.
• There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.
• The lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not…
• There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to. It's like trying to write…
• I really believed that anything at all was worth writing about if you cared about it enough, and that the best and only necessary justification…
• Like writing, running is so much about mind over matter. There are times when you have to override the discomfort and keep pushing. That capacity…
• You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and…
• When we stopped to rest and Tony tried to figure out what was wrong with his compass, I asked him what he thought it was…
• I can imagine a future in which real books will exist but in a more limited, particular way.

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