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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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Jonathan Ames
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 23
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Life
Impossible
Talk
Goal
Declaration
Happiness
Personally
Happy
Acknowledge
Seems
Independence
Even
Pursuit
Never
Achieve

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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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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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.
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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 don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.
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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'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 intrigued by Stockholm Syndrome. Reminds me of my childhood.
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I'm actually much more shy and self-conscious than people's perception of me.
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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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To write about a place, you have to live there.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.
Jonathan Ames
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I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew.
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It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.
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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