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
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
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
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
Having animals in the city is entirely different from having animals out in the country. For one thing, it’s more social. When you live on lots of acres without neighbors within a stone’s throw, your dog-walks are usually solitary rambles over hill and dale. – Susan Orlean
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
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
When I wonder what the future of books will be, I often think about horses. Before automobiles existed, everyone had a horse. Then cars became available, and their convenience, compared to horses, was undeniable. – Susan Orlean
You can find out anything you want about a car now, and especially every bit of information about the price, without relying on the dealers. – Susan Orlean
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
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
When it comes to consumer electronics, I’m a big fat sucker, because even though I know you should never, ever buy anything until the second version of it is released, I just can’t resist. I live in a state of perpetual Beta. – Susan Orlean
I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus. – Susan Orlean
My ace in the hole as a human being used to be my capacity for remembering birthdays. I worked at it. Whenever I made a new friend, I made a point of finding out his or her birthday early on, and I would record it in my Filofax calendar. – Susan Orlean
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
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
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
I finally overcame my phobia, and now I approach flying with a sort of studied boredom – a learned habit, thanks to my learn-to-fly-calmly training – but like all former flying phobics, I retain a weird and feverish fascination with aviation news, especially bad news. – Susan Orlean
I don’t turn to greeting cards for wisdom and advice, but they are a fine reflection of the general drift of the culture. – Susan Orlean
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
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
I love tearing things out of the ground. I love digging and discarding. I love pruning. In fact, I love pruning so much that I once gave myself carpal-tunnel syndrome because I attacked a trumpet vine with so much dedication. – Susan Orlean
To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it’s in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy. – Susan Orlean
I have no idea how to get in touch with anyone anymore. Everyone, it seems, has a home phone, a cell phone, a regular e-mail account, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and a Web site. Some of them also have a Google Voice number. There are the sentimental few who still have fax machines. – Susan Orlean
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
I can imagine a future in which real books will exist but in a more limited, particular way. – Susan Orlean
The semiology and phenomenology of hashtaggery intrigues me. From what I understand, it all began very simply: on Twitter, hashtags – those little checkerboard marks that look like this # – were used to mark phrases or names, in order to make it easier to search for them among the zillions and zillions of tweets. – Susan Orlean
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
