330 Quotes by Susan Orlean

The reading of the book was a journey. There was no need for souvenirs.

This is why I wanted to write this book, to tell about a place I love that doesn’t belong to me but feels like it is mine, and how that feels marvelous and exceptional. All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library’s simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

They formed a human chain, passing the books hand over hand from one person to the next, through the smoky building and out the door. It was as if, in this urgent moment, the people of Los Angeles formed a living library. They created, for that short time, a system to protect and pass along shared knowledge, to save what we know for each other, which is what libraries do every day.

There’s a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

A book feels like a thing alive in this moment, and also on a continuum, from the moment the thoughts about it first percolated in the writers mind to the moment it sprang off the printing press – a lifeline that continues as someone sits with it and marvels over it. Once words and thoughts are poured into them, books are no longer just paper and ink and glue: they take on a kind of human vitality. The poet Milton called this quality in books “the potency of life.

World War II destroyed more books and libraries than any event in human history. The Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books during their twelve years in power.

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.’

You read and read and read and read,” she said, “and then what?

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.