3 December 2020 Susan Orlean I want to let my friend Buster know that I would like to have dinner with him tonight. Does Buster work at home? Then how likely is he to have his cell phone on? Is he one of those people who only turns on his cell when he’s in his car? I hate that.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but there are a few things I wish I didn’t know.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean One of my favorite activities as a teen-ager was to watch television over the phone with my best friend.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean 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.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod, I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven’t listened to in years.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean Every corny thing that’s said about living with nature – being in harmony with the earth, feeling the cycle of the seasons – happens to be true.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean I can imagine a future in which real books will exist but in a more limited, particular way.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean Sometimes I’m dazzled by how modern and fabulous we are, and how easy everything can be for us that’s the gilded glow of technology, and I marvel at it all the time.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean Buying a car used to be an experience so soul-scorching, so confidence-splattering, so existentially rattling that an entire car company was based on the promise that you wouldn’t have to come in contact with it.
3 December 2020 Susan Orlean 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.
