Jonathan Ames Quotes

Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.

I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.

Is the prestige conferred by the Man Booker prize for the book or me? I would prefer it on the book and for me to be treated ordinarily.

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.

Whenever anyone calls me 'The new J..K. Rowling,' I think, 'What's wrong with the old one?'

I don't know the literary world; I was scared of being confronted with famous names, not knowing what they had written. It was occupied territory I was entering.

Making the best-seller list is a big deal; it's like being nominated for an Oscar. Hitting No. 1 is like actually winning the award. It's very gratifying.

I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.

Winning the Whitbread was a very major thing for me. I'd always been well reviewed, but this made me widely read.

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship.

The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.

I'm sure I wouldn't have been asked to judge the Man Booker if it weren't for 'Downton.'

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Authors should be honored only for their works.

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.

Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

I'm glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me.

I don't chase publishers. Publishers chase me.

If I can hit No. 1 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list, I'm thinking of having the entire list tattooed on my body somewhere. It would be fabulous.

When I got my very first phone call that I'd hit the 'New York Times' list, I had a small rush of 'I've made it!' But the next morning, it occurred to me I didn't know what it was, so I called my agent and asked what being a 'New York Times' bestselling author really meant. He informed me that I was now a thousand pound gorilla.

I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.

The first writers are first and the rest, in the long run, nowhere but in anthologies.

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.