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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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Jonathan Ames
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 23
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Give
Fail
Giving
Busy
Ephemeral
Writing
Succeed
Identical
Trying
Failing
Confusing
Make
Stay
Prose
Things
Pleasure
Mostly
Life
Goal
Scripts
Like
Whether
Debate

More quotes by Jonathan Ames

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I always liked those characters in 'True Blood' who could turn into animals. I'd love to be an animal of some kind and run quickly through a forest.
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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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.
Jonathan Ames
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I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew.
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 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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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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I'm actually much more shy and self-conscious than people's perception of me.
Jonathan Ames
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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.
Jonathan Ames
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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.
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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I wish we had a dog in the show so that I could get to be a dog for a day.
Jonathan Ames
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I'm on the verge of a total breakdown. Sciatica. Taxes. Cars. Fleas, possibly. It's an absurd existence.
Jonathan Ames
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Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.
Jonathan Ames
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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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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
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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There are so many talented young writers named Jonathan, with whom by comparison I suffer terribly.
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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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.
Jonathan Ames