Susan Orlean Quotes

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it.

My father said writing was a nice hobby. He strongly encouraged my brother and me to become doctors.

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.

Unlike my mother, who was unashamedly delighted when I decided to become an actor, I always feel that my father, had he lived longer, might have been a touch disapproving of some of my career - I think he might have tutted a bit at 'Men Behaving Badly.'

I do remember feeling, 'I don't ever want to feel impotent in terms of what I can control in a business in which you can have very little control.' And that motivated me to go to law school - that, and my parents saying, 'Go to law school before you do anything.'

To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea.

While my mother wanted me to be a musician, I wanted to become an electronic engineer.

I never hoped that both my children would become actors. I expected them to do something else.

I love that my dad has stopped asking me when I'm going to get a real job.

My father is a very successful man in the corporate world, and I am his only son. He had certain dreams for me. I was scared to tell him that I wanted to be an actor.

I wanted to be a doctor, but my mom was like, 'It's really hard and it's going to take 10 years,' so I was like 'OK, I'll just be a lawyer'.

My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical, you see. Of course, I was just as determined to do it.

I wasn't meant to be an attorney, but I was meant to go to law school.

With due apologies to Shakespeare, some people are born writers, some people achieve it after a lot of hard work, some people have a writing career thrust upon them. I am in that last group.

I don't really know why I went to law school.

My parents always knew that I loved music. They just didn't think I'd try to make it a career. They thought I'd be a painter or an art teacher or something like that.

I didn't go to law school to become a lawyer, per se - let's just say I was leaning in to some strong suggestions from my parents - but my nebulous goals of someday becoming a writer were just that, nebulous.

I think my mum wanted me to join the army or something, or become a surveyor - something with good career prospects.

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

My parents are amazing, but when I was like, 'Well, I'm going to be an actress,' and they're all doctors, that wasn't the best and easiest thing to do. I'm sure that I probably went through a year period when I wasn't telling them exactly what I was doing. But that's going to evolve.

When I left university I was working for a documentary film company for six or seven years to the great relief of my father whose greatest waking fear was that I would become an actor.

My parents owned a pharmacy in Budapest, which gave us a comfortable living. As I was their only child, they wanted me to become a pharmacist. But my own preference would have been to study philosophy and mathematics.

My dad was not happy about my not becoming an architect like him.

I thought law school was more like the guillotine. I didn't really think I would make it; I just thought this is one of the few ways to potentially get respect, to go to law school.

Dad was convinced always that I was going to be a road sweeper.