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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
Law
Brilliance
Common
Relatively
Sense
Cleaning
Nothing
Nails
Finger

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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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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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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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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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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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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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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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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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There is always time for failure
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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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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 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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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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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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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