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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.

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
Revolution
Farce
Thousand
Revolutions
Minutes
Rebellious
Minute
Theatre
Tragedy
Played
Theater

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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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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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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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There is always time for failure
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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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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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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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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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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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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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 only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
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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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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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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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I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.
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