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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

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
Fingers
Clean
Needed
Brilliance
Law
Relatively
Common
Cleaning
Sense
Nails
Nothing
Finger

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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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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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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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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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Success is good for the character.
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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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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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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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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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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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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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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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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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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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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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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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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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