Quote

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.

John Mortimer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Corners
Notes
Marlowe
Took
Murdered
Book
Spy
Play
Dickens
Much
Shakespeare
People
Sat
Corner

More quotes by John Mortimer

Image
What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
I don't think you ever feel a success really because everything could always be done better than you've done it.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
I knew nothing about farce until I read Puce a l'Oreille, and had no idea what a deadly serious business it is.
John Mortimer
Image
It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
John Mortimer
Image
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
Image
The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
John Mortimer
Image
To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
John Mortimer
Image
Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
John Mortimer
Image
Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
John Mortimer
Image
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.
John Mortimer
Image
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'.
John Mortimer