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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
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
Writing
Validity
Bore
Bores
Rule
Found
More quotes by John Mortimer
We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
John Mortimer
Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
John Mortimer
I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
John Mortimer
What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.
John Mortimer
Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
John Mortimer
Success is good for the character.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
John Mortimer
All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
