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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.

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

More quotes by John Mortimer

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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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 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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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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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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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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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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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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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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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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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
John Mortimer
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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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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
John Mortimer
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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 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
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
John Mortimer
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
John Mortimer
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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.
John Mortimer