The Curious Incident of the Quotes in the Night-Time*

posted by Emily Gordon

“Someone once said to me that reading Lorrie Moore is like being tickled to death.”
—Deborah Treisman, New Yorker fiction editor

“I revise all the time, so loving something doesn’t always occur to me. Loving something that you’ve written is probably a bad sign.”
—Moore on contentment with one’s work

Question for Moore: “How do you know so much about relationships, about women’s friendships?”
Moore: “I have your phone tapped.”

“This is the frantic, misanthropic part of the evening.”
—Jonathan Franzen

“Nonfiction’s easier. Basically. To be perfectly honest.”
—Franzen on whether it’s easier to write fiction or nonfiction

“I did not ascend directly into heaven.”
—Franzen on finishing his first book; question, which he and Zadie Smith both liked, was about the jarring transition between straining to finish the first book and then suddenly realizing writing is your job

*All quotes fairly accurate but scrawled quickly in the dark. Anyone with a transcript is encouraged to submit fixes.

25 September 2005 | uncategorized |

Updike with People

Emily Gordon: Was John Updike full of elegant ideas and excellent elocution? Did a nicely suited David Remnick ask respectful questions and gently tease the Rabbit raconteur about his stellar work ethic and multiple writing desks facing the sea? Did Updike confess his early ambitions to be a cartoonist and entreat us to read the classics? Were all the audience members called on to ask questions men? (I actually didn’t see any women getting up to the mike; at Lorrie Moore, on the other hand, male questioners were ignored.) Was Updike fond yet a little censorious about William Shawn’s fidgets about references to sexual organs? What do you think? On what would have been F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 109th birthday, Updike could only shake his head in sorrow and say, in effect, Jugs, Not Drugs. No, no, naturally he was much more articulate and sincere than that, and did not make infantile puns. More in a bit.

24 September 2005 | uncategorized |