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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.

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
Wear
Telegraph
England
Jury
Duty
Copy
Hate
Copies
Hats
Escape
Daily
Bowler
Carry
Bowlers

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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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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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What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.
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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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I suppose true sexual equality will come when a general called Anthea is found having an unwise lunch with a young, unreliable model from Spain.
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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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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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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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I found criminal clients easy and matrimonial clients hard. Matrimonial clients hate each other so much and use their children to hurt each other in beastly ways. Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable.
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I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.
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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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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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Success is good for the character.
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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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Check-ups are, in my experience, a grave mistake all they do is allow the quack of your choice to tell you that you have some sort of complaint that you were far happier not knowing about.
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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There is always time for failure
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