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I don't really recognise success. I don't see myself as on an upwardly mobile trajectory. I see myself as on the edge of a cliff about to fall off.

Jonathan Ames

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Jonathan Ames
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 23
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Really
Cliff
Cliffs
Recognise
Mobile
Edge
Edges
Success
Upwardly
Fall
Trajectory

More quotes by Jonathan Ames

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To write about a place, you have to live there.
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I've always been inspired by Don Quixote as a role model of sorts, of the power of books to sort of make you insane in maybe a beautiful way.
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There's no shortage of material in life.
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I'm on the verge of a total breakdown. Sciatica. Taxes. Cars. Fleas, possibly. It's an absurd existence.
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I enjoy both TV writing and novel writing, and they are very similar. The goal is to entertain and amuse the audience, and I subscribe to this P.G. Wodehouse piece of advice: Try to give pleasure with every sentence.
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Whether I'm writing scripts or prose, the goal is identical. To give pleasure. Now whether I succeed or not is up for debate, and, mostly, I fail. But I try. I like to make things. It's a way to stay busy during one's ephemeral and confusing life.
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I wish we had a dog in the show so that I could get to be a dog for a day.
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I'm actually much more shy and self-conscious than people's perception of me.
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My sophomore English teacher encouraged me to write for the school paper, and that's what got me started. Suddenly it struck me that being a writer could be a romantic and adventurous position. Previously, I had thought I would be a tennis pro, giving lessons at a local club. I thought that would be a good life, and it might have been.
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Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.
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How terrible to be alcoholic. You just want to quietly soothe and maybe poison yourself, but you end up poisoning those around you as well, like trying to commit suicide with a gas oven and unwittingly murdering your neighbors.
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I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew.
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There are so many talented young writers named Jonathan, with whom by comparison I suffer terribly.
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The work changes the way your face changes and ages - it just does. Also, I have very little connection to anything I've written. I move on. We all move on
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I don't really know the person who wrote the things I wrote. I kind of know him, but I change so much all the time that it's like I start fresh over and over and over and over. Writing-wise and life-wise.
Jonathan Ames
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Personally, I've never had it as a goal in life to be happy. Seems impossible to achieve. Even the Declaration of Independence seems to acknowledge this. They talk about the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.
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I hid my underwear beneath a parked Peugeot.
Jonathan Ames
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I don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.
Jonathan Ames
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It was one of those days when every time I went to go out the door, something grabbed me in the back of the brain and said, lie down and masturbate one more time.
Jonathan Ames
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It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.
Jonathan Ames