Susan Orlean Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

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 an extreme, not an aberration - that most people in some way or another do strive for something exceptional, something to pursue, even at their peril, rather than abide an ordinary life.

Susan Orlean
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 limiting but liberating.

Susan Orlean
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 for writing any particular story was that I cared about it.

Susan Orlean
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 about orchids that seduced humans so completely that they were compelled to steal them and worship them and try to breed new and specific kinds of them and then be willing to wait for nearly a decade for one of them to flower.

Susan Orlean
I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Susan Orlean
I suppose I do have one embarrassing passion — I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.

Susan Orlean
The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.

Susan Orlean
Don't be ashamed to use the thesaurus. I could spend all day reading Roget's! There's nothing better when you're in a hurry and you need the right word right now.

Susan Orlean
You should read as much as possible. That's the best way to learn how to write.

Susan Orlean
There is nothing more melancholy than empty festive places.

Susan Orlean
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 stuff. I think everybody's always looking for something a little unusual that can preoccupy them and help pass the time.

Susan Orlean
It's human nature to set a point in our minds when we feel triumphant and to measure everything that comes after it by how far we fall or rise from that point.

Susan Orlean
If you had really loved something, wouldn't a little bit of it always linger?

Susan Orlean
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 you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.

Susan Orlean
Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida.

Susan Orlean
When it comes to nonfiction, it's important to note the very significant difference between the two stages of the work. Stage one is reporting. Stage two is writing.

Susan Orlean
An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

Susan Orlean
I would argue that it might be easier to endure loneliness than to endure the idea that you might disappear.

Susan Orlean
In the universe there are only a few absolutes of value; something is valuable because it can be eaten for nourishment or used as a weapon or made into clothes or it is valuable if you want it and you believe it will make you happy. Then it is worth anything as well as nothing, worth as much as you will give to have something you think you want.

Susan Orlean
Country living — and definitely living in the country with a lot of animals — isn't peaceful. It's full of blood and guts and murder and rivalry and treachery and chaos, in a lovely green pitiless world.

Susan Orlean