A Quote by Susan Orlean

When my son was born, and after a day of lying-in I was told that I could leave the hospital and take him home, I burst into tears. It wasn't the emotion of the moment: it was shock and horror.
I remember being in tears at the hospital after Chloe was born, at the thought that someday she would have to leave home.
I think sometimes people expect people to burst into tears. But, I think sometimes emotion, as I've seen, shock, can have a lot of different manifestations. Sometimes it's tears and sometimes it's just complete stoicism.
I was born in New York City on a cold January night when the water pipes in our apartment froze and burst. Fortunately, my mother was in the hospital rather than at home at the time.
Anecdote: In a controversial way, Comedian and actor Bill Cosby sought to teach his son the pain of being lied to. Convinced his son had been dishonest regarding an issue, Cosby promised that if he told him the truth, he would not hit him. When his son did confess, Cosby did hit him. Seeing his son's shock and hurt, Cosby said he hoped this lesson had deepened his understanding of the anguish generated by a sense betrayal.
Like a butterfly stuck in a chrysalis, waiting for the perfect moment, I was waiting for the day I could burst forth and fly away and find my home.
I had no idea that such a thing could happen. It never occurred to me.My son told me. He called me and said, "Darling, I just wanted you to know that you have been chosen to receive an honorary Academy Award." I was in the back of this car, and I said, "Oh," and burst into tears, of course, because it was so unexpected and quite wonderful. I thought it's been worth hanging around all these years.
My grandfather always told me that it is no good lying on a hospital bed saying, 'I had the right of way', ... That's one of the reasons I was so pleased that the boys could do the IAM test as well.
My son is actually named after Beck, the musician. We heard Beck on the radio and thought that was a good nickname for a child. We named our son Beckett so we could call him Beck - we reverse engineered. And then after he was born and I saw the name on the birth certificate I realized Beckett was a really pretentious name, way too literary. Luckily he's grown into it. We nearly named my second son Dashiell. Can you imagine? Beckett and Dashiell. It would have been a disaster of pretentiousness.
I think there can always be beauty in struggle. I mean, as far as childbirth, I had my son in the hospital, but then I had my daughter at home. There's no doubt that there's a struggling in birth, and a beauty and a horror and fear and joy too.
I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day, lay down on my bed, and tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It's like crying for your mother after she's gone. You cry because you love her. I cried, I guess, because I loved baseball, and I knew I had to leave it.
If an employee told you he had the flu, you'd send him home. If an employee told you he was feeling anxious, you'd probably tell him to get back to work. But the emotion is just as contagious as a flu virus.
Anyone can do shock value. Develop enough tension and cue the music right, then have something jump out: It's almost impossible not to jump in your seat. But that doesn't leave any effect on you when you leave the movie theater. To me, the best horror is psychological horror. The Exorcist, The Shining, The Omen, things that kind of stick with you long after you've seen them. It's what you don't see. It's letting the audience think a little bit, not spelling it out for them. Giving them credit for using their own imaginations rather than sticking in gags and tricks.
I was a little bit of a slob who was sort of surrounded by dirty laundry. I can trace the exact moment that I became a tidy human being, and that moment was the day my son Sam was born.
Home is a blueprint of memory...Finding home is crucial to the act of writing. Begin here. With what you know. With the tales you've told dozens of times...with the map you've already made in your heart. That's where the real home is: inside. If we carry that home with us all the time, we'll be able to take more risks. We can leave on wild excursions, knowing we'll return home.
I used to blame my problems on other people. But my moment of clarity, if you want to call it that, came when I was looking in the mirror one day and just burst into tears. It wasn't just that I looked bad, it was that I knew my problem was me.
A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, 'Everything is possible again.' It was the perfect thing to write, because that was exactly how it felt. We could retell our stories and make them better, more representative or aspirational. Or we could choose to tell different stories. The world itself had another chance.
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