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Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

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
People
Censor
Mostly
Hurt
Write
Writing
Trying
Things

More quotes by Jonathan Ames

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The reason it's hard for me to tweet is I don't want to pronounce anything, and Twitter is for pronouncing.
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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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For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone. Perhaps if I was depressed and isolated, just communicating with these authors through their sentences helped me.
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I hid my underwear beneath a parked Peugeot.
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To write about a place, you have to live there.
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I live for coincidences. They briefly give to me the illusion or the hope that there's a pattern to my life, and if there's a pattern, then maybe I'm moving toward some kind of destiny where it's all explained.
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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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One last thing on objectives - I like to make things, create things, so that's probably been the primary objective all along, even before the ego objective - to make. To record. But why record... that gets back to the ego, a little. Oh, well. Making is good. I like to make things.
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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.
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Nothing wrong with changing your mind. That's a very unwaffling thing to say: Nothing wrong... Who am I to say that there's nothing wrong with it? Maybe something is wrong with changing your mind. Anyway, love is very, very difficult. I love. But probably because I hate myself on some deep, sick level, it makes loving difficult. But I do try.
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I don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.
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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 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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Having a show get canceled is like, 'Oh, you have caviar between your teeth,' you know what I mean? Because you had a show in the first place.
Jonathan Ames
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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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Whenever I wrote fiction, people always seemed to think that what I wrote was true, that it was entirely autobiographical. And when I would write non-fiction, they often accused me of exaggeration and fictionalization.
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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.
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It seems like the original 'Star Trek' could have gone on longer.
Jonathan Ames