Quotes from Jonathan Ames

I grew up in northern New Jersey - the banlieue of New York - and I now live in Brooklyn. I am separated from my parents by about 50 miles, but really there is almost no distance between us. I speak to them nearly every day.

It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.

I need to stay in the present and use that new-age mantra: 'I'm okay right now.' But I worry about all the things I'm failing at every moment.

For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone.

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.

I am part of a vast generation of people who perpetually live as if they just graduated from college.

I might have some sort of personality disorder. I might not have proper filters; it might be some kind of version of Asperger's meets Tourettes meets prose.

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

I'm on the verge of a total breakdown. Sciatica. Taxes. Cars. Fleas, possibly. It's an absurd existence.

A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.