Susan Orlean Quotes

I get letters constantly from all over the world, telephone calls from America, Brazil, Australia, all over, especially on my birthday. A family? I have a huge international family. That's all I need.

I thought it would be cool to Skype with fans on their birthday and spend, like, a half-hour with them. I did a couple of two-hour Skypes. I just hang out with them and play songs and stuff. At first they're kind of shy, but after a while they open up. I've had a lot of people tell me I'm doing something no one has ever done before.

You never really meet a human being until you live with them or know them for awhile, so this is my clown and they understand that and so these interviews don't bother them.

I don't need much more money, and I thought that when I retired that nobody would want to talk to me anymore. Then I did, and people still want to talk to me.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

The personal contact is a personal thing. The fact that some people don't know their neighbors, I don't think that technology is at fault. You don't lose anything with technology. You gain other avenues of understanding.

Networking is rubbish; have friends instead.

I am still very much a part of my friends' lives and they are very much a part of my life. A First Lady who does not have this source of strength and comfort can lose perspective and become isolated.

I'd like to get back to my family and friends - believe it or not, I do have some real friends.

I love being able to connect with my friends and I want them to feel as close to me as possible.

Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.

I try to make a lot of time for friends and family because I think that's really important and for pleasurable experiences.

One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.

My greatest talent is in my ability to choose good friends. It's about as important as things get.

I've worked on jobs where there are almost 200 people on set... you always make an effort to have a relationship but you can't really when there's 200.

The value of a relationship is in direct proportion to the time that you invest in the relationship.

Losing friends and spouses is an inevitable part of aging, and many people have a tendency to go quietly into semi-isolation. Instead, set your intention on expanding and deepening the love in your life.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

The old adage which says that it is ‘whom you know that counts’ is far off the mark. It is what you know about whom you know that truly makes difference.

I think in this world and this industry, if you let it, it does. And I feel that the people who don't have good friends and family around them are the ones who get a little funny. But I'm very lucky. I have good friends and good family and if I ever stepped out of line, my mom would take me down!

Without the human community one single human being cannot survive.

Everybody has some talents - we all have an art side and some talent - but you have some areas where you are better than others. My area is acting, I guess. I hope.

You can survive on your own; you can grow strong on your own; you can prevail on your own; but you cannot become human on your own.

How sweet is life, can we but choose with whom to live it: to live for oneself is no life.

Once a human being has arrived on this earth, communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships he makes with others and what happens to him in the world about him.