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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
Audience
Amuse
Goal
Entertain
Enjoy
Sentence
Give
Similar
Giving
Piece
Writing
Advice
Trying
Novel
Wodehouse
Every
Pleasure
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More quotes by Jonathan Ames

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To write about a place, you have to live there.
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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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It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.
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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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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.
Jonathan Ames
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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.
Jonathan Ames
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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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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.
Jonathan Ames
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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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A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.
Jonathan Ames
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It seems like the original 'Star Trek' could have gone on longer.
Jonathan Ames
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I've always been intrigued by Stockholm Syndrome. Reminds me of my childhood.
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.
Jonathan Ames
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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.
Jonathan Ames
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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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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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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.
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.
Jonathan Ames
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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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I wish we had a dog in the show so that I could get to be a dog for a day.
Jonathan Ames