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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.

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
Enough
Important
Writing
Desperately
Finished
Scene
Remember

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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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Success is good for the character.
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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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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 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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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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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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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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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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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There is always time for failure
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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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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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