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What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

John Mortimer

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John Mortimer
Age: 85 †
Born: 1923
Born: April 21
Died: 2009
Died: January 16
Barrister
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Screenwriter
Writer
Hampstead Village
Sir John Clifford Mortimer
Sir John Mortimer
John Clifford Mortimer
Stricken
Panic
Search
Lifetime
Starting
Writer
Voice
Work
Obsesses

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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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There is always time for failure
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.
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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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My father, to whom I owe so much, never told me the difference between right and wrong now I think that's why I remain so greatly in his debt.
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I knew nothing about farce until I read Puce a l'Oreille, and had no idea what a deadly serious business it is.
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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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The people look forbidding, solemn, marked by that impossible ideal, Communism, which, like Christianity, seemed to demand too much of humanity and, falling into the wrong hands, led too easily to horrible brutality.
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When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.
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Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless, and foolhardy. Children and old people have everything to gain and nothing much to lose. It's middle-age which is cursed by the desperate need to cling to some finger-hold halfway up the mountain, to conform, not to cause trouble, to behave well.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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There's more of yourself in a book than a play. that's why we know all about Dickens and not much about Shakespeare. Ben Jonson murdered people Marlowe was a spy Shakespeare just sat in the corner and took notes.
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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
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The officers of the branch of the Force (the Obscene Publications Squad) have a discouraging club tie, on which a book is depicted being cut in half by a larger pair of scissors.
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I don't think you ever feel a success really because everything could always be done better than you've done it.
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People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don't think anybody learns anything.
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