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

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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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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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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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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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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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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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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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