330 Quotes by Susan Orlean

Writing about unknown people means I spend a lot of time arguing to the reader about why it’s worth knowing about them. That’s challenging, but then the piece is pure discovery.

I don’t turn to greeting cards for wisdom and advice, but they are a fine reflection of the general drift of the culture.

The reading of the book was a journey.

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned.

I was never any good at remembering dates, but now I hardly have to. When the first bulb catalogs get delivered and the hens start laying again, that’s all the notice I’ll need to know that winter has passed.

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.

It wasn’t that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured, collected here, and in all libraries – and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up – not just stopped but saved.

The library is a prerequisite to let citizens make use of their right to information and freedom of speech. Free access to information is necessary in a democratic society, for open debate and creation of public opinion.

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.