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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.

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
Habit
Called
Flaw
Looking
Irritating
Father
Inherited
Art
Advocate
Flaws
Luck
Argument

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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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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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Success is good for the character.
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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.
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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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There is always time for failure
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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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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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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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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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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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