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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.

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
Goal
Entertain
Enjoy
Sentence
Give
Similar
Giving
Piece
Writing
Advice
Trying
Novel
Wodehouse
Every
Pleasure
Subscribe
Audience
Amuse

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I am part of a vast generation of people who perpetually live as if they just graduated from college.
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I've really never written about my relationships, or things like that. I wouldn't want to divulge things that were too private.
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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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A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.
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It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.
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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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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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There are so many talented young writers named Jonathan, with whom by comparison I suffer terribly.
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Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.
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There's no shortage of material in life.
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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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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.
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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 certainly want to portray the importance of friendship. I had noticed in movies and TV shows that friends often treated one another terribly, and my friends, the few I have, are never cruel to me or unkind, so I wanted to convey that.
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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 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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To write about a place, you have to live there.
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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.
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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 don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.
Jonathan Ames