Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

I translated Michel Butor’s essay about criticism — you can read it in minor literature[s]! I love Butor’s strange brain, and I hope you will too.

When you’re in love you’re in love everywhere

The thing is, when I was 8 at school we had to learn Victor Hugo’s poem about him going on a long sad walk to lay flowers on his daughter’s grave (she drowned at 19) and I have been melancholy ever since

When I was a child I thought Walker Texas Ranger was the guy’s full name. I thought, Cool name

Sending my novel to my agent on the anniversary of my mother’s death for the sake of symbolism

Do butterflies have short stories due for workshop though. Yeah that's right. Yeah I'm fighting with a butterfly. Yeah I'm winning.

Do Americans know that French people call basketball ‘le basket’

Well, sure. So, it’s like, there’s this person. And they lived in this place. And the question is: what if they had memories? Also: resignation. Also: ‘genre?’

a great strategy for writing valuable and enduring work is to regularly assert how you aren’t actually being serious and don’t really care about your subject matter that much

I genuinely don’t understand how any institution can believe it is non-discriminatory and still ask applicants for letters of recommendation. It’s actually absurd

Given that I started learning how to speak English when I was 11 and was only really fluent in my early twenties, I have decided that I am in fact an 18-year-old writer. All in all a baby-writer. Treat me accordingly. Give me milk and attention. Carry me on your back.

Desk in Paris last year / Desk in Iowa City this year

Last night I finished a new draft of my novel —— which was Very Nice until I began to ask myself questions such as What Do I Do Now and Does My Life Have A Purpose and Did It Ever Anyway and Did I Love My Mother Well

Whenever I read a text that someone I love and admire loves it makes so much softer towards that text!

How many similes do we think there are in In Search of Lost Time? I’m only halfway through Swann’s Way but so far I would guess seven hundred million

‘Thigh’ really doesn’t go as hard as ‘cuisse.’ Too soft. Can’t do anything with a thigh. Can crush anything with a cuisse

The thing about Time in the Novel is that sometimes I make a thing happen in the middle spring because 'April,' in that sentence, sounds better than 'March.'